Grand Rapids Community Foundation

Email message to the Grand Rapids Community Foundation Board of Trustees - May 6, 2011

May 6^th, 2011

I just can't contain myself and must tell the world how great and humble the staff members at the Grand Rapids Community Foundation are! Our board has been bombarded by my emails as of late announcing awards being given to this community foundation for a variety of things. I needed to let them know of one more honor and here is the message! Enjoy!

Good afternoon board members! Enough already you are likely saying to yourselves! BUT I have one more award announcement to make . . . and then I'll just be quiet for a bit! Yesterday the Foundation was honored to receive the Small Business "Elite" award at the luncheon event for the 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For - West Michigan. This was the 8th year in a row that we were selected to be one of the "101 Best and Brightest" and I've always hoped we would win one of the 11 Elite awards but we are so small therefore have a difficult time "competing" with the big firms/companies for that. To my surprise, Lynne Black returned from the luncheon with the Elite award! We were on Cloud Nine! This award is everyone's award - staff and trustees! So congratulations to all of you too! We did celebrate late yesterday afternoon and toasted one another! Here's what I sent the staff this morning. I thought you would like reading it. Have a grand weekend! Diana

"While we all know that receiving awards are moments in time seemingly fleeting when we are slogging through the sludge of our work! Hold the recognition and the celebrations close to you. I know none of us is so full of ourselves to let this go to our heads. In fact, we are quite the opposite! So I want to tell you all that I am so very proud of each of you. That even though I can get to be a real challenge at times, I do know how fortunate that the Foundation is (and me too!) that all of you are so very, very good and committed to our mission and vision. I never take that for granted.

Let's again toast the accomplishment of receiving the Elite award for Small Business for the 101 Best and Brightest Companies in West Michigan! That is just a wonderful honor. Let's all remember too that Roberta King IS the PR Professional of the Year! And that she and Amanda have been awarded much deserved honors this year from the Council on Foundations and the Public Relations Society of America, West Michigan chapter! Let's savor the moment when we received the Pillar Award from the Women's Resource Center. We were a finalist to receive the Diversity Visionary Award of the Chamber and we were proud that Bing Goei ultimately and deservedly received that top prize. (We'll give it a go again in two years when the Chamber opens this up again!)

I'd say every time we take a step leading a cause or an initiative, enjoy balancing a budget, celebrating every time that we receive a gift and see someone's joy when they talk about how the Foundation has had an impact on their lives . . . well everything we do from organizing scholarships, enhancing the website, solving technological challenges, hosting wonderful events, reviewing grants and writing up brilliant analyses, seeing the excitement on the faces of our youth grantmakers as they make tough grant decisions and sell them to the board, successfully exporting a report from FIMS, entering data into FIMS, checking obits, answering the phones in a very pleasant way, greeting guests and making them feel welcome into our wonderful home, figuring out where the leaks are coming from, laughing together, crying together, sometimes debating with each other . . . . all of it adds up to being the best! You are all award winning each and every day. You are making a significant difference and you need to know that and don't discount it! Thank you everyone - you all inspire me.

Okay - sappy time is over!"

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Award winning communications - strengthening philanthropic leadership

May 31^st, 2008

I am an avid reader of anything relating to social and economic trends, philanthropy, leadership, popular culture and strengthening communities. Okay so popular culture seems out of place but in truth it isn't! It provides some amusement and diversion and mostly provides a handle on what various outlets view as "hot"!

This then gets me thinking about how does an idea, a person, a business, a community, a product, or anything for that matter get to be in the "hot" category. Watching the CNBC show The Big Idea with the host Donny Deutsch, does provide a glimpse at how "something" may be in the spotlight. Actually making sure that an idea - product - business has staying power is what is really crucial!

All this said, I try to make sure that this community foundation continues to be relevant, is in the forefront of key issues and uses the collective brainpower of our great staff, board members and volunteers - AND our donors to be innovative in our approaches that may or may not attract the attention of people locally or beyond West Michigan. It is the impact that is important - not the accolades. But the accolades are appreciated!

Which brings me to critical roles of marketing, public relations and communications and how GRCF has been fortunate to have the leader on our staff to successfully communicate complex ideas and at times intangible information. This leader is Roberta King who is our Vice President for PR & Marketing. This past March we were informed that this foundation won an unprecedented SIX communications awards from the Council on Foundations through the Wilmer Shields Rich Awards program.

In fact, GRCF won 4 Gold awards and 2 Bronze awards. The Gold awards were for our website, our 2006-07 Annual Report, a special report honoring the 10th anniversary of the Lowell Area Community Fund and our quarterly publication Current. The Bronze awards were for a special marketing piece entitled the Elements of Planned Giving and for a very unique public information campaign involving our Youth Grant Committee.

This is not just the standard run of the mill "hey aren't we something because we won these awards" commentary. Community Foundations many times do not have the resources that other types of foundations or businesses do to produce high level publications, sophisticated public awareness campaigns and the expertise to sustain a well thought out marketing program. I have found that when I study how other foundations are communicating their messages through the lens of this awards program, I am exposed to great ideas for sharpening our approaches that I would not have been aware of otherwise. Thankfully, we have the talent to accomplish this remarkable feat and not necessarily the financial resources in our budget that others may.

Roberta and along with PR & Marketing Associate Amanda St. Pierre have done this extraordinarily well and they are indeed exceptional leaders whom I admire and applaud!

This past Thursday evening, Roberta and her team were honored once again receiving 5 PRoof awards from the West Michigan Public Relations Society of America. One Gold award was given to the publication Current and 4 Silver awards in areas that were given awards in the previously noted program with honor also being given to the year long awareness effort that Roberta orchestrated for our 85th anniversary in 2007. The PRSA program involves businesses, major corporations and nonprofits - all pooled together - so it is competitive to say the least.

Congratulations to our "hot" marketing staff of Roberta and Amanda and their entire team!

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