In 2016 a group of local nonprofit leaders began meeting over some common issues that they had encountered. These meetings led to discussions about creating a local resource for nonprofit organizations that could potentially foster collaboration, information sharing, shared services, training and other items of interest to the nonprofit community. There was particular interest in providing resource that would be of benefit for small or new organizations.
Those discussions led to a commitment to create the Columbia Basin Nonprofit Association (CBNA). Founding Members agreed to pay $1,000 each to CBNA to provide seed funding to get the organization going and to fund operations during a period where participation in CBNA events would be available to all nonprofit organizations regardless of membership. In April 2018 CBNA held its first event which was extremely well attended and confirmed the significant interest in what CBNA planned to offer.
