Seeking Young Philanthropist Nominees

The Young Leaders Society of United Way of Summit County is seeking nominations for its inaugural ‘Young Philanthropist of the Year’ award. The award will be presented at United Way’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at the John S. Knight Center.

The intent of this award is to recognize an individual, age 40 or younger, who has demonstrated a passionate desire to help others through financial support and service to non-profit organizations and institutions within Summit County, including United Way.

According to United Way of Summit County President Bob Kulinski, “All of our events in 2008, especially our Annual Meeting, will acknowledge our 90th Anniversary, giving us a great opportunity to look back over our history and thank all those who have helped us raise more than $400 million since 1918. In addition, presenting the Young Philanthropist Award will enable us to recognize one of the future leaders of our community and our organization.”

For a nomination form, call Ing Kiland at 330-643-5505; write to United Way of Summit County, 90 N. Prospect Street, Akron, OH 44304; or fill out an application online at our website, http://www.uwsummit.org/.

United Way of Summit County improves lives by mobilizing community assets for health and human services. For more information, call 330-762-7601, visit our website at www.uwsummit.org, or write to us at United Way of Summit County, 90 N. Prospect St., P.O. Box 1260, Akron, Ohio 44309-1260.

In the United Way world, Summit County is seen as a Leader

After my trip to the Brand Forum in late January and last week's regional 'Great Rivers Conference' in Indianapolis that was attended by a large contingent of United Way of Summit County staffers, one of the realizations we've come to is that our organization is far ahead of the curve on many aspects of our work.

Our staff was constantly innundated with questions from people from other communities - asking advice on how have we been able to do this, or how have we been able to achieve those results.

During this week's 'de-brief' meeting, the sentiment was shared again and again 'our work here in Summit County is solid and cutting edge.'

Today, a contingent of our colleagues from Columbus are visiting us to chat with Beth Houseman and discover how she has gotten 'BornLearning' up and running here with Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.

United Way of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky is doing a survey of successful United Ways of similar populations, and we're included in their sample. I just filled out their questionaire, and I know that similar questions will be asked of leaders in other departments. We're very much looking forward to seeing the results of the benchmarking survey results when they're captured by the folks in Lexington.

Because while we're proud of the work we do and how well we do it, we're not satisfied, and we're always striving to do better. Perhaps there are ideas from other United Ways that we can incorporate here into our work.

Utilizing the 'New Media'

Marketing folks of a certain age - well, let's say old enough to remember when Michael Jackson was famous for his music - are scrambling to make sure that the latest phenomenon - the New Media - doesn't leave us behind.

United Way of Summit County is hosting a Marketing Summit for our affiliated agencies on Thursday, March 13 from 8 am to 12 noon at the offices of Rubber City Radio group.

One portion of the seminar will focus on the New Media, and we're assembling an impressive panel of authorities including Scott Piepho, one of the region's top journalist/bloggers (read his Pho's Akron Pages) and Todd Bertsch of Triad Communications.

I'm looking forward to putting on this seminar, and also learning much from these experts.

In the mean time, here's a link to the United Way ad that ran during the Super Bowl.

If you go to YouTube.com and put United Way in the search, you get to see some wonderful campaign videos and media coverage from all across the country (and even some from around the world). It's especially nice to see my friends from Lexington, Kentucky (nice job David) and Milwaukee (well done Betsy) represented on YouTube.

By the way, if you search Docs Who Rock on YouTube, you'll find many videos from many of the bands who have participated in our show over the past few years. So, we've got a presence there, too.

'The Weather Outside....'

...as the holiday song goes 'is frightful.' And I'm no fan of the cold and snow. I often joke 'when my Grandfather came to America from Ireland, why did he have to settle in Akron? Surely there were jobs to be had in Phoenix or Sante Fe!'

But I do enjoy one part of this time of year - and that's how helpful so many people are. When there's a car stuck in a snowdrift or a neighbor's sidewalk needs shoveling, there always seems to be someone (or many someones) willing to pitch in.

I was recently swapping emails back and forth with my new friend Erin, the Marketing and Communications Specialist with the United Way in Milwaukee, and she commented on how folks in her town are dealing with two feet of snow. "There is great comraderie built when neighbors have to join together to get a city bus unstuck," she wrote. "People wandering around with shovels looking for people to dig out. It's great!"

And we see the same thing here in Summit County as well. Our job is to tap into that natural inclination most people have to help, and show that an investment in their community through United Way is a way to offer that help day in and day out.

But the bottom line is, whether you're helping with your checkbook or your shovel, (hopefully both), just be aware that that's how you LIVE UNITED.

Brand Forum - Follow-Up Report

Hello again.

The 2008 United Way Brand Forum is now over, and from my point of view, and according to everyone I talked to, it was a rousing success. Cynthia Round, Peter Hahn and the whole Brand Management staff at United Way of America deserve a big round of applause for a job well done.

The roll-out of the new LIVE UNITED campaign/social movement was exceptional, dare I say, even inspiring. The videos that were shown (there were about 3 or 4 of them spread out over the 2 and a half days of the seminar) were all greeted with loud cheers and rousing ovations.

Before I arrived in Jacksonville, I was rather nervous about the format. All the presentations were done in the large conference room to the whole group – there were no ‘break-outs’ until the very last day. But now in retrospect, that was the right thing to do. There was a lot of information to disseminate around this concept, and for the most part, the speakers had valuable information to impart and they did an excellent job of being informational and entertaining.

In order to help us remember the various concepts of LIVE UNITED, they showed it to us in a Rubix Cube template. There were three sets of three components – our programs should now fit into one of the three impact areas: Education, Income and Health; our requests of our consumers should be around these three areas: Give, Volunteer, and Advocate – and we must remember to: Ask, Thank and Inform.

One of the interesting parts of the Forum was the case study project. We were assigned to a table number when we arrived, and each table formed a team to take what we had learned about LIVE UNITED and apply it to the United Way of Southeast Pennsylvania. We were provided a great deal of background information about their situation, including Community Impact progress, giving history, annual report, and much more.

On Thursday evening the groups were given a few hours to put together a projected roll-out plan for LIVE UNITED in UWSEPA (Philadelphia). Each team turned in their PowerPoint presentation on a Disc to the UWA team, and they spent several hours selecting three teams to make a live presentation on Friday morning.

Wouldn’t you just know it; one of the teams selected was Table 3, including yours truly. After all three teams made their presentations, a vote of the attendees and a panel of judges (including UWSEPA President Alba Martinez) chose the winner. And once again, I was shocked an honored when Table 3 was selected.

When my teammate Kim sends me the PowerPoint presentation, I’ll share it with you here. Congratulations to the rest of Team 3, Cindy Wester of Huntsville, Alabama; Wayne Collins of Chattanooga, TN; Terry Tolan of United Way of Kentucky; Kimberly Morgan of Danbury, CT; Yashvinee Narechania of New York City; and Nancy O’Malley of Forth Worth, TX.