Personal Branding – Bridging the Gap Breakfast Sessions

[521 words, 5 minutes reading time]

Today was a special day: I woke up at 6.30 sharp! The special reason was one of the Breakfast Sessions of Bridging the Gap, an NGO that offers training support for charities and brings them together with organisations from the business sector.

The morning sessions are part of the Bridging the Gap NGO Academy. They “aim to offer NGO professionals some “food for thought” in an informal setting over coffee(…) and some brief practical guidance on a broad range of NGO communications best practice – as well as the chance for discussion & for the group to share their experiences.”

The theme of the workshop was how to build your personal brand and it was held by Anna Heijker, the Communications Manager of the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce in Bucharest, also an entrepreneur who offers supports to business people on communications topics such as pitching and networking.

The session was extremely well structured and perfectly timed. We mostly worked in pairs and took turns to discuss our answers to questions* that help one build his/her own personal brand step by step.

Anna is a true professional and created a balanced energized atmosphere throughout the workshop. She’s been in Romania for two and a half years now. She got here as a volunteer and, after participating at the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program, she started her own business.

The participants were mostly NGO representatives: some work with vulnerable groups, others in the education sector, one of the guys won a Romanian Music Awards in 2011 and is now an entrepreneur, while others were just at the start of creating the foundation for their organisations.

The atmosphere was perfect for networking and finding out about new organisations and opportunities:

  

1. Eematico holds a special event for the 1st of June celebration of children. On the 31st of May and the 1st of June, both parents and kids will build toys through hand-on experiential learning activities. They will use various tools, under close supervision and guidance from the trainers.

  

2. Daniela Draghici (a vivacious lady with a very cool sense of fashion) joined today’s breakfast session as a freelancer. On the 12th of June she will put on her trainer cap and host a workshop on advocacy for Bridging the Gap. The application deadline is the 4th of June. I’ll surely give it a try!

 

You can find more about Bridging the Gap in the Digi TV interview with one of the co-founders, John McKellar, here. I strongly recommend watching it and keeping a close eye on this organisation – for sure it’s going to have an important impact in the Romanian NGO world!

* Questions that will help you build your personal brand:

• What are your strengths?
• Why do you do what you do? “I love it!” is not an acceptable answer, dig deeper 🙂
• What channels do you advertise on? Which are the ones most suitable for you?
• How can you grab attention? Say something positive and catchy, no nasty stories to be shared if you wanna make a good impression!
• What are your goals? Put them out there, you never know who might help you.
• Enthusiasm always works. Always be ON (check out this TED talk for inspiration here )!