Letter from the President

Issue #7 - July 16, 2007 - Connections

"Winds of Change"

This summer, the winds of change have not only brought incredibly hot weather, but a merger of the ConnectMichigan Alliance and the Michigan Nonprofit Association (effective July 1). The ConnectMichigan Alliance mission of promoting and strengthening a life-long ethic of service and civic engagement through the support of community building initiatives will thrive under the Michigan Nonprofit Association and the CMA Endowment will continue to support volunteerism and service in Michigan.

This merger formed out of a nearly year-long dialogue among the CMA partners and other state leaders.  As a result, the Michigan Nonprofit Association (MNA) agreed to expand its board membership, broaden its mission, and re-structure its management system to reflect this new and exciting growth opportunity.  The Michigan Campus Compact and the Volunteer Centers of Michigan, current affiliates of the ConnectMichigan Alliance, became affiliates of the Michigan Nonprofit Association on July 1, 2007 and they, along with the Michigan Community Service Commission (a state government agency) will be provided seats on the MNA Board of Trustees.

I look forward to continuing the support of service and civic engagement through the Michigan Nonprofit Association and look forward to working with you to advance a vibrant nonprofit sector through an engaged volunteer force.

Sincerely,

Kyle Caldwell
President and CEO
Michigan Nonprofit Association

Guest Column

The Nonprofit Sector’s Secret Weapon
Older adults can play an important role in solving community problems in Michigan and around the country

By John Gomperts, Experience Corps CEO

“Raven liked to ask a million questions,” says Dareather Greer, 63, a former secondary school teacher who joined Experience Corps last year and now tutors at Southeast Academic Elementary School in Grand Rapids.  “At first I tried to answer Raven, but it wasn’t long before I realized what she was really doing,” Greer says.  “Raven was trying to distract me so I wouldn’t know she wasn’t able to read the assignment.”

Over three months, Greer worked with her first-grade charge for 30 minutes a day, four days a week.  “I kept saying, ‘Come on, you can do it.  We need to do your reading,’” Greer explains.  Once focused, Raven and Greer sounded out the syllables together, eventually combining them to form words, then sentences.  “There’s a light that goes on in a child when he or she understands something for the first time,” Greer says.  “Finally she came in and said, ‘I have this book I want to read!’  And I could just see: there’s the light.”

Greer is one of 20 Experience Corps members in Grand Rapids, a project that opened this school year.  Like the number of aging baby boomers, Experience Corps, the nation’s leading nonprofit national service program for Americans over 55, is growing.  Today, Experience Corps affiliates operate in 20 cities around the country, mobilizing the time and skills of older adults to help solve critical community problems, beginning with literacy.

By 2012, one in five Americans will be over age 60.  Thinking about how they can make the world that future generations will inherit a better place, 75 percent of this group expects to “work in retirement,” and more than half want to do work, paid or unpaid, that will improve life in their community.  The opportunity to tap boomer energy, idealism and talent couldn’t be more clear or compelling.

Nonprofits are uniquely positioned to seize this opportunity -- and to benefit from it.  Facing an enormous workforce shortage over the next decade, the nonprofit sector can engage this experienced and motivated generation by offering challenging volunteer assignments and paid work opportunities that take advantage of experience while providing flexible schedules.  Hospitals can enlist and retrain retiring boomers to help fill the shortage of nurses and aides.  Schools can draw on the skills and patience of older adults to improve education.

It’s all part of a national realization that the aging of America can be a source of strength for our communities.  Experience Corps’s work in Michigan and around the country has shown that those in the second half of their lives are more than up to the task.  In Boston, for example, students with Experience Corps tutors show three times the improvement of the typical struggling student without a tutor. Across the country, 97 percent of teachers surveyed are satisfied with the program’s impact.

Former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare John Gardner observed that, “The nation today faces breathtaking opportunities disguised as insoluble problems.”  In Grand Rapids, Dareather Greer understands that when people seize those opportunities, everyone benefits. 

“It’s a win-win situation,” she explains.  “The time we spend with the children really helps them, but it helps us too.  I know my being there has made a difference, and I really believe I benefit as much as they do.”

John Gomperts is the CEO of Experience Corps in Washington, D.C. and can be reached at jgomperts@experiencecorps.org.  Experience Corps Grand Rapids is hosted by Gerontology Network.  For more information, contact Rev. Peggy Lawrence Burns, 616-771-9748, pburns@gerontologynetwork.org.

Serve Michigan

Volunteers Make the Best Advocates
By Tiffany Aurora, Policy Associate, Michigan Nonprofit Association

Sherry volunteers at the Rescue Mission downtown. Every Thursday right after work, she drives fifteen miles south of her office, rolls up her sleeves and joins six other volunteers in an air condition-free kitchen to cook dinner for over a hundred of the city’s homeless. She doesn’t get paid. Most of her friends and colleagues don’t even know she does it. And the only thanks she gets is from one old man who’s in line every Thursday, the man with the bent-over back and toothless grin, who always goes out of his way to thank every volunteer for making sure he eats that day.

It’s not much. But it’s enough. It’s enough because Sherry can tell that little sandy-haired boy at the back of the line doesn’t eat much. It’s enough because the woman sitting in the corner lost everything in a house fire. She’s been living out of her car for the past four months and can’t afford groceries. It’s enough because Sherry knows she’s making a difference, even if it’s just a small one.

Sherry knows the stories. She knows the people. If you’re the Rescue Mission, Sherry is your best advocate.

Why? Because she isn’t paid to be there. She isn’t paid to care. Sherry comes back every week because she knows there’s a problem, she knows whom it affects, and she decided it was time to help. Sherry gets that one person really can make a difference. And one person, combined with one more person, combined with one more person, can make a big difference.

Nonprofits and their volunteers need to be talking with their elected officials. They need to be sharing stories, telling policymakers about the community problems, and showing them in a hands-on manner that the problem really can be addressed, one person at a time.

Take a couple minutes today to work with your volunteers and collectively invite your elected officials to visit your organization for an hour or two. Give them a chance to view the issue you’re dealing with on a regular basis. Have your volunteers share from their hearts. The impact it could have on your elected officials and the way you work together for the betterment of your community could be priceless.

Michigan Campus Compact

Kalamazoo College student awarded for commitment to local food movement
By Lisa Sommer, Outreach Program Manager, Michigan Nonprofit Association

When Holly Anderson’s first-year service-learning seminar, “Commitments,” came to an end in the fall of 2005, she felt a strong investment to continue the progress she and her classmates had made with the education and promotion of local agriculture.  Her dedication led her to creating Farms to Kalamazoo College (Farms2K), a program connecting Kalamazoo students, faculty and staff with community organizations to promote the local food movement within the college cafeteria.  Through the help of the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, Farms2K became a recognized student organization in the fall of 2006.

With assistance from community partners such as the Local Food Co-Op and Fair Food Matters, Anderson has led Farms2K through a series of educational events and regular meetings for organization members, the College dining service Sodexho manager, farmers and community members.  These educational events and meetings are creating a foundation and helping implement the necessary steps for local farms to eventually sell food in Kalamazoo College’s cafeteria and Kalamazoo Public Schools, while providing a support for the local food system.  One cook-off event brought more than 500 people in attendance and a panel discussion saw more than 200 people in attendance.

“The work our organization members and partners do to educate and build support from the campus and community is incredible,” said Anderson, Farms2K Student Leader.  “It is exciting to see our work pay off when I receive emails from classmates who are interested in learning more and connecting with their local farmers.”

Recently, Anderson, a sophomore at Kalamazoo College, was selected as one of five college students nationwide to receive the Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award from Campus Compact for her work outside the classroom and outstanding commitment to community service.  Anderson was selected to receive this award for her work with Farms2K (www.kzoo.edu/farmstok).

“Holly has demonstrated true passion for the local food movement not only by her involvement with Farms2K, but through her day to day life,” said Dr. Amelia Katanski, Farms2K Faculty Advisor and First-Year Experience Instructor.  “She has changed her personal eating habits and is convincing her parents to do the same.”  In September 2007, Anderson will travel to Scotland, where the local food movements originated, to study how its school restructured to involve local agriculture.

Both Anderson and Katanski are amazed to see how much the students, faculty and community want to be a part of the local food movement.  They initially expected to feel opposition when approaching the campus and community, but instead have been surprised by the immediate interest to get involved. 

“Farms2K also works to foster sustainable agricultural practices with safe and fair working conditions,” said Anderson.  “It is our hope that the information sharing between local food advocates will continue to grow, service-learning courses will continue to educate students about the importance of the local food movement with both national and international perspectives, and relationships between environmental advocates and the College will be sustained.” 

The five college student recipients of the 2007 Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award are: Jessica Allen of Maui Community College in Hawaii, Holly Anderson of Kalamazoo College in Michigan, Andrea Laidman of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Stefanie Lynch of Emerson College in Massachusetts, and Bryan Mauk of John Carroll University in Ohio.

Campus Compact gives the Swearer Award annually to five students who have been nominated by their college presidents for creating an innovative approach to addressing a social, educational, environmental, health, economic, or legal issue within a community.  Made possible by a grant from Ariel Capital Management, LCC, each award includes a $1,500 prize - $250 to support a service program or organization the student has worked with and $1,250 for the student’s professional development. 

Volunteer Centers of Michigan

Sault Tribe inspires ‘Gift-givers’
By Brandon Seng, Communications Manager, Michigan Nonprofit Association

In Ojibwe society, each person had clearly defined roles and responsibilities that they fulfilled for the benefit of their families and communities. A strong sense of family and community remains as one of the most important values our ancestors gave to us. By volunteering to help the community we can continue to honor the teachings of our ancestors…

This was an excerpt taken from the Volunteer Resource Directory of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and only begins to show the Tribe’s deep commitment to service and volunteerism.  To support tribe members in celebrating this piece of their rich heritage, the United Way Volunteer Center of Chippewa County has opened a satellite volunteer center within the Sault Tribe.  The center carries an appropriate name, Maagwejig, Ojibwe for Gift-giver.

Maagwejig operates in the same capacity as other Volunteer Centers within Michigan’s Volunteer Center network, which manage, track and match community volunteers with volunteer opportunities. The center is the first of its kind among the many Tribal Nations in our state and across the country, and hopes to inspire others to start similar initiatives.

“The idea of a tribal volunteer center is unique to Michigan," explained Diana Algra, Executive Director of the Volunteer Centers of Michigan.  “Tribal nations could easily replicate what was started within our network, and the benefit to their communities would be substantial.”

The tribal community is in itself a volunteer network, and the Maagwejig center has begun to build infrastructure to support this network.  Being able to collect data on the service taking place within the Sault Tribe, community leaders will have a better idea of what services are offered, and which ones are needed.

“Our culture is deeply rooted in community,” said Kristi Little, Associate Executive Director of the Sault Tribe.  “There is a strong sense of family and each clan has a role and a responsibility within the community.  Historically we’ve been doing everything that a Volunteer Center does, but the structure it provides will help us do it more effectively.”

Organizing those that volunteer within the Tribe is proving to be no small feat, and with the support of AmeriCorps*VISTA Sonnet Quinn, the center is beginning to capture and record some of this data.  “If we could currently track the total numbers of volunteer hours given by the tribe, it would be unbelievable,” said Quinn.  “Through Maagwejig, we are getting the first factual glimpse of how engaged this community is.”

In addition to the aforementioned benefits of Maagwejig, the Sault Tribe is witnessing other positive affects that come from volunteerism.  Members of the tribe have come to better understand their culture, and those curious about their heritage have been given yet another glimpse of what it means to be a member of the Sault Tribe.

For more information about Maagwejig contact:
Sonnet Quinn
Maagwejig Volunteer Coordinator
AmeriCorps*VISTA
United Way Volunteer Center
Phone: (906) 635-6050  ext. 26003
Email: volunteer@saulttribe.net

Michigan's Promise

Carson City mentoring program wins 2007 Red Wagon Award

“You can always make a difference in someone’s life through words, actions and who you are to them. Impressions last a lifetime.”  This was a quote in response to a survey given by the Carson City School Mentoring Program, a 2007 Red Wagon Award Winner.

The Michigan’s Promise Red Wagon Awards are given annually to programs that exemplify one of the five promises identified by America’s Promise. 

The contact point for their Community of Promise, Volunteer Connections of Montcalm County nominated this mentoring program for their recent award.  The Carson City School Mentoring Program is one of the several mentoring programs affiliated with that community of promise, and Volunteer Connections names it as one of their longest running programs.

“After celebrating their ten-year-anniversary, we thought it a perfect time to highlight the success of this program,” said Denise Hubbard, Executive Director of Volunteer Connections.  “Our relationship with this program goes way back to its start, and they continue to be very involved in serving the youth in our area.”

The program has gone beyond the traditional adult-child matching, and has implemented two other programs where high school youth mentor young children in the school system.  High school juniors are now matched with middle school students, while seniors serve as “Reading Buddies” with children in lower elementary grades.  Overall the program has nearly 250 youth being mentored by individuals who work to model character, positive choices, decision-making and values.

Volunteer Connections has identified this program as one that provides ongoing relationships with caring adults to the children and youth in their community.  In the ten years the program has been running, it has built a base of dedicated volunteers, many of whom have been serving as mentors since the program began. 

Building a sustainable program is difficult, but through the hard work of Mentoring Coordinator Kelly Pringle and other dedicated volunteers, the Carson City School Mentoring Program has accomplished just that.  They have created a program of quality that returns year after year, to make a difference in the lives of Michigan’s youth. 

For more information about this program, and other volunteer opportunities in Montcalm County, visit www.mcvolunteerconnections.org.

Mentor Michigan

Mentoring Drives Career Exploration
By Laurie Tarter, Program Director, Mentoring Solutions

Kelly Counts-Cadreau has been a supporter of Winning Futures ever since she graduated from the program in 1996 as a high school student.  A program of Mentoring Solutions, Winning Futures is a school-based mentoring program for 3rd through 12th grade youth rooted in teaching character values, goal setting and strategic planning.  Kelly never thought that her enrollment in Winning Futures those many years ago would result in full-time employment. 

Hamilton Chevrolet is a sponsor of the Winning Futures program, and Kelly’s mentor owned the dealership. In 1997, Kelly was given an employment opportunity to sell cars at the dealership by her mentor and decided it was worth a shot.   Now, 10 years since that job offer, Kelly is still employed at the dealership and currently serves as Assistant Sales Manager.  Over the years, she has credited the success skills received from Winning Futures as instrumental in helping her achieve her goals both personally and professionally.  Kelly has earned “Sales Leader of the Year” on numerous occasions and has moved up the ranks within Hamilton Chevrolet at lightening speed. 

“Winning Futures is a big part of my life and I’ve always made my thanks well known to this program,” said Kelly.  “I wouldn't be where I am today without the special efforts of my mentor.   Those people close to me know how I feel about the chance I was given.” 

Kelly experienced first hand the benefits of having a mentor as well as the success tools the program provided. She decided 10 years ago that by staying involved through mentoring she would be able to give back to the community and school that have given her so much.  Kelly began her mentoring career as a teen mentor to sixth graders, and in 2001 began mentoring high school students at her alma mater at the age of 24.

“This program does not end at graduation,” Kelly pointed out.  “I feel as though that is just when it started.  I have had the opportunity to speak to many students about my success with the program, and that is my way of showing appreciation.”

In 2007, Kelly received the honor of Mentor of the Year for her work as a mentor through the very program from which she graduated.  Not only does she generously donate her time, knowledge and listening ear to her mentees, she also spends time recruiting and fundraising for the program.  Kelly is a true success story of the program and has taken her experience as a mentee full circle.

For more information about Winning Futures and other programs of Mentoring Solutions, visit www.mentoringsolutions.org.

The LEAGUE

Michgan LEAGUE Commission makes advancements in youth philanthropy
By Kari Pardoe, Director of the Michigan LEAGUE

The LEAGUE Michigan recently celebrated a huge step as it held its first Commission meeting on Thursday, May 24th.  During this meeting, the Commissioners signed a basketball to commemorate the day and the future of the program, and heard from students, teachers and principals representing three different schools who have been participating in The LEAGUE during this past school year. Commissioners also took time to lay out the ground work for the fall launch, recruitment of new commissioners, and a new fundraising plan.

Throughout the 2006 – 2007 school year, the 43 Michigan schools participating in The LEAGUE have given over $302,000 in value back to their local communities.  The specific value that is given back to each community varies from school to school, but some forms included; food, volunteer hours, money, toys and winter clothing.

Overall, the Commission feels that this past school year was a tremendous success, and looks forward to engaging more schools as they prepare for the official launch of The LEAGUE Michigan statewide, which will coincide with “The Drive” that takes place in November.  The Drive is an event where students will conduct a collection drive of food, clothing and miscellaneous items to provide needed goods to a chosen recipient organization in their community.

To learn more about The LEAGUE or how to engage your school, contact Kari Pardoe at (313) 309-1668 or kpardoe@mnaonline.org.

Editor:
Brandon Seng, Michigan Nonprofit Association
Contributors:
John Gomperts, Experience Corps
Kari Pardoe, Michigan LEAGUE
Kristina Beamish, United Way Volunteer Center of Chippewa County Kyle Caldwell, Michigan Nonprofit Association
Lisa Sommer, Michigan Nonprofit Association
Laurie Tarter, Mentoring Solutions
Tiffany Aurora, Michigan Nonprofit Association

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