Guest Post: Get Out There and Hug a Tree Today!
April 27th, 2012
Guest post from Kate Luckert Schmid,Community Foundation Program Director
Arbor Day is the perfect time to stop and take notice of the tremendous value trees have on our community. While the beauty of a tree is evident, only recently has research begun to prove the lifetime benefits of a tree on our environment, our health, and our economy. In fact, recent estimates have suggested that the current 35% tree canopy in the City of Grand Rapids provides over $372,000,000 in benefits from reduced storm water runoff and increased air quality alone.
The Community Foundation is excited to support local effort to increase our urban tree canopy to 40% - requiring at least another 185,000 trees to be planted and cared for. In order to have a thriving urban forest we are going to need extensive community support and action. Since only about 5% of the available planting spots are on property owned by the City, the majority of trees will need to be planted on private property. This is where you and I come in!
We are starting with a two year grant to the Friends of Grand Rapids Parks which will afford them the opportunity to launch the Urban Forest Project – a multi-faceted effort to provide opportunities for people of all ages to get engaged in growing our urban canopy. The Urban Forest Project is developing a web resource center for all things tree-related, a crowd-sourced tree inventory, and multiple events to encourage tree planting and care. We encourage you to think about ways to involve others you are connected with – maybe your neighbors, classmates, church, or employer.
Tools and resources to help build the long term vitality of our urban forest are on the way. So, stay tuned for ways that you can help ensure an even greener Arbor Day in Grand Rapids’ future!
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News at the ground level! The Rapidian is all about our community!
April 16th, 2012
My dad was an editor extraordinaire. He was a valued employee at The Detroit News for more than 45 years starting as a carrier and climbing the ladder to become the highly regarded Sports Editor retiring in 1979. His words of wisdom over the years still ring in my ears as he valued good writing and knew that the role of an editor was to make good stories even better! (He would say, "Win is NOT a noun! I wish headline writers would stop using that word as if it was!")
With this as my personal backdrop, I listened to Roberta King, this Community Foundation's Vice-President for PR and Marketing, as she made the case for submitting a proposal to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of an initiative involving community foundations across the country entitled the Community Information Challenge a few years back providing an incentive for local level communications.
My initial reaction was - "so what impact will this really make and don't we have enough on our plates already?" If anyone knows Roberta, you know that this is more of an invitation to create the best and not be deterred by a boss that may not quite "get it" thank heavens!
Enter Laurie Cirivello the president of Grand Rapids Community Media Center. She has been a tremendous asset to the greater Grand Rapids area continuing to implement the broad vision of the late Dirk Koning. Roberta knew that if anyone could help design an effort, that Laurie was the just the person to do so. Many design meetings were held in our conference room, ideas galore were generated landing on the plan that ultimately birthed The Rapidian. The Knight Foundation agreed that this idea had legs and gave us a grant!
From the beginning, the community participated in growing the idea into reality. As Holly Bechiri, The Rapidian's Managing Editor notes: "Beginning April 16th, an Education Week will kick off [a] fund drive as we learn more about why we as a community need to embrace and support the news coming from our own citizens. Partnering rather than competing with local media outlets, The Rapidian instead gives citizens the opportunity to be involved with the changing landscape of media."
Encouraging people at the neighborhood level to provide their take on issues facing our community and new opportunities for growth, The Rapidian has grown in importance in the past two and a half years. The Grand Rapids Community Foundation also proudly provided seed funding to bring this idea to fruition.
Now it's time to provide the opportunity for our community to financially support this on the ground, hyperlocal news source! A great development actually - a move for sustainability. While this blog isn't usually a place that reaches out to ask for financial support for the many worthwhile causes in our area, I am making an exception and asking for your consideration to support The Rapidian powered by the Community Media Center. "Join me in supporting The Rapidian: the hyperlocal news source powered by the people of Grand Rapids!" Visit The Rapidian website to learn more about this fund drive and the great services being provided! http://therapidian.org
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The Social/Nonprofit Sector - what will it look like decades from now?
February 15th, 2012
Provocateur: a person who provokes trouble, causes dissension, or the like; agitator. OR, according to the Sieger definition, is it a person who causes one to step out of their zone and look at the world in another way!?
I am constantly thinking about the future and the role that Grand Rapids Community Foundation is playing and can be playing in that future. For me, it is no longer just a question of our relevancy but something much more than that. Are we really ready for what is just over the horizon?
At the annual Council on Foundations’ Conference for Community Foundations last September, a leader in our field challenged the audience to really look at ourselves and question whether the community foundation “model” was sustainable. I am used to this fine gentleman’s attempt to try to create a stir. And while I was listening to some degree, I thought he was asking the wrong question.
The question is whether the social sector – the nonprofit field if you will - actually be the same in 10 – 20 – even 50 years from now. And community foundations aren’t the only nonprofit corporations that need to really think about this.
More specifically, will fund raising really sustain the sector in terms of revenue generation to build capacity and continue to make an impact? It could be argued that partnerships with governmental sources, creating subsidiary businesses to provide income, and other ideas will help bolster the sector. But what I’m looking into - - - - what will the sector look like and how will the sector grow in terms of resources beyond asking for money? Hmmmm. Ponder that one. More to follow.
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What was your first job? What summer jobs did you have? How did this impact your life?
January 10th, 2012
Shelley Irwin, host of WGVU Radio Morning Show as well as WGVU-TV programs, has had me on every month on her radio show in a segment known as “Perspectives in Philanthropy” for a number of years. It is a great way to delve into topics of interest in our community as well as highlight key aspects of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.
This past Monday on Shelley’s show, I talked about the key accomplishments of the Community Foundation in 2011 and provided a glimpse into what I thought would be happening in 2012 overall in terms of charitable giving and the local economy. We got to talking about an important effort that was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation last May focusing on summer youth employment opportunities focusing particularly on youth of color. That sparked a quick conversation on air about our summer jobs back in the day!
Shelley is younger than I am and frankly these days it seems like everyone is younger than me! A testament to my age is that my first job was that as a want-ad checker at The Detroit News. The ad copy would be on sheets of paper that looked like Western Union telegrams that would be filed alphabetically by classification of the ads by a group of high school students, mostly children of News employees. This was so long ago that there were separate categories for jobs for women and jobs for men! Frankly when you think about it – it wasn’t THAT long ago. No wonder women still are trying to climb the ladder of equality! But that’s a blog entry for another time.
The radio program conversation made me curious so I went on Facebook and posed the question - what were the first jobs or summer jobs of the friends I follow on that social media site. Very interesting results! Is there a correlation between those first employment forays and the careers or jobs that people hold today? AND most importantly, how this does relates to young people who are eager to enter the job market and their future success? Here’s a wonderful journal written by our Public Relations Intern Molly Murray last summer who interviewed some young people who participated in the summer program. This is well worth reading!
In case you are curious, here are only some of the results of my Facebook inquiry regarding first jobs or summer jobs:
- Worked in food service in a nursing home. I was an expert in pureed veggies!
- Ice cream scooper at a small joint on Grand Rapids’ NE side
- Gas attendant at a gas station at Breton Village.
- Babysitting was my first paying job. I worked at Dunkin’ Donuts and Sally’s Beauty Supply. I also started my own cupcake business with a good friend.
- Mowed lawns for $1 a yard. Started when I was 14 in the neighborhood. Had a nice little business and made $12 a week!
- Pruned trees and worked on watersheds for the Youth Conservation Corps.
- “Tool Crib Girl” at Lear Siegler!
- Salad Girl at the Pen Club
- And many more!
The point of all this is that we all had opportunities to develop our skills, learned how to “go to work”, and developed an appreciation for what it takes to be employed! I know from reading the journal compiled by Molly Murray that the young people employed last summer through the efforts of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation and many wonderful nonprofit partners in our community that they also had the good experiences to help catapult them into future occupations and careers - and key to this was that they were given the opportunity !
Kind of makes you wonder . . . how did a want-ad checker become a Foundation President? Hard work, perseverance and knowing how to relate to many different people in many different situations! Onward we go!
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You Poor Souls! ;-)
December 2nd, 2011
It's time for Diana's Soapbox!
For years, I have been on a mission to help people understand that the nonprofit sector is not second class! While the sector has been hit hard by the recession, what sector hasn't? Well, MiBiz is featuring a section of their publication now focusing on the nonprofit sector and frankly I couldn't be more pleased. I am not trying to promote this publication over any other but I am just making a point that with all the focus on how the nonprofit sector should be more businesslike and other uninformed comments like that I've heard over the years, frankly this is refreshing.
In the November 28th issue, the section on nonprofits was introduced and in that section was an article that featured my opinion on the nonprofit sector and its role in helping to revitalize our state of Michigan. As a sign used to proclaim in my office, "everyone is entitled to my opinion", please feel free to open this link and be greeted by my thoughts!
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