Reach for the Stars!

The Bridge conference, mid-summer’s joint effort by the AFP/DC and the DMAW — and a merger of their respective, arguably lackluster annual events — opened a fresh dialog among members of two symbiotic organizations and sent an exciting shiver of change through the conference circuit. Kudos to the conference’s architect and most relentless champion, Creative Direct Response’s Geoff Peters, for seeing a need in the sector and working his butt off to fill it. With Geoff at the helm, a staff of two and a small army of volunteers, Bridge has grown in just over three years to — we believe — the third-largest (by attendance) fundraising conference in the country. As was noted in this magazine after Bridge last year, “[Conferences] can’t just tell fundraisers that they need to do their jobs with passion and an eye toward innovation. Rather, [they] have to imbue them with that passion through the proper mix of speakers, topics, events and attitude. And [we] applaud any conference organizers with the foresight to stay on the cutting edge and the balls to shake things up.” FS