Keynote Speaker Floyd Jones Inspires at TCC’s Nonprofit Summit

Tidewater Community College’s Academy for Nonprofit Excellence hosted the 2025 Nonprofit Summit: The Power to Thrive on Tuesday, March 11, in the Virginia Beach Campus Student Center. The Summit included two speeches by keynote speaker Floyd Jones and multiple workshop discussions to help local changemakers expand their nonprofit organization impact and help repower them to succeed in their future work. TCC staff and local nonprofit organization leaders from the Hampton Roads area presented their fundraising advice and experience in the concurrent sessions in the morning and afternoon.

Jones, a renowned coach and community builder, shared his insight on engagement and nonprofit leadership for fundraising campaigns. The New York City native is the founder of Floyd Jones Enterprises and BackBlack—an initiative that has raised over $2 million for Black-led nonprofits.

Jones has a mission to provide leaders of nonprofit organizations with tools and confidence to succeed with their fundraising campaigns, specifically actionable strategies to transform their followers into loyal supporters and donors. He also has experience with partnering with leaders to help grow their grassroot organizations and create lasting change. Jones has worked with several brands in the past including Nonprofit Storytelling Conference, VISA, Nike, AfroTech, Neon One, Man Talks, NBA 2k, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

At the Summit, Jones presented two strong keynote speeches to inspire the audience of nonprofit organization leaders and purpose-driven entrepreneurs: “The Significance of Your Story” and “Community as Catalyst”.  

The afternoon keynote speech “Community as Catalyst” was devoted to providing organizational tools to help nonprofit organizations engage the community. It focused on the process of mobilizing passionate advocates, volunteers, and board members into joining the fundraising campaigning and connecting with others to build a network of supporters.

Jones noted that Sarah Linden-Brooks, Program Director of the Academy for Nonprofit Excellence, had heard him speak at another convention and reached out to have him speak at this year’s summit.

“I love when I see organizations so intentional about supporting changemakers. We have so many people who are making an impact, but they don’t have the support they need to fly and succeed. So, when Sarah told me about this event, I was like ‘I’m going to be there’. I decided to make my way to TCC and speak,” Jones said.

Jones first spoke on his fundraising success with the Volo Kids Foundation, which is an organization that uses the power of play to build communities of active, resilient, and confident kids through quality sports programs and opportunities at no cost to families. The foundation launched its first Giving Tuesday campaign in 2017. Jones played a role in the peer-to-peer campaign, which had a goal to raise $5k. The campaign evolved as he started the trend to change his profile picture on social media to him as a kid playing a sport to spread awareness of the campaign. It sparked conversation online where the campaign’s supporters received hundreds of likes and dozens of comments to help spread awareness of the campaign. Jones and his team ended up raising $30k, and the success of the campaign drove momentum into the next year.

Jones shared his tools for fundraising success including the 5 S’s of success: set an intention, set a goal, segment your audience, mobilize your supporters, and share your story. He also shared the significance of goal setting and collaboration. He emphasized that fundraising should be easy and engaging and to be creative while in the process.

Jones shared his final piece of advice: “People want to support you. Let them.” 

TCC has many Nonprofit Summit Supporters including the United Way South Hampton Roads, Hampton Road Community Foundation, ODU: Monarch Humanities Internship Academy, Towne Bank, Association of Fundraising Professionals VA: Hampton Roads Chapter, The Curtis Group, Network Peninsula, and Nisenson Consulting.

To learn more about TCC’s Academy for Nonprofit Excellence, visit https://academy.tcc.edu for more information.