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A Coveted Award for Villages NW
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Villages NW has been named Portland Monthly magazine's
Best New Nonprofit of 2015. The hub organization was honored at a special Light a Fire ceremony on October 20 and is featured in the November 2015 issue of the magazine. Executive director Anne Andler's e-mail announcing the award to the spoke Villages said, "We hope all of you are as thrilled about this honor as we are. It should be a HUGE help to everyone's fundraising and marketing efforts."
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A great deal of activity is taking place behind the scenes to ready our Village to open with a full range of services. Here are a few activities that involve committees:
Asset Mapping by the Resource Committee - surveying information about what is available in the many neighborhoods that make up our Village's service area (transportation; restaurants and coffee bars; nonprofit organizations, especially those set up to serve older residents; grocery stores; parks and other natural areas; entertainment options). Survey results will help us craft the fine details of our services to members.
Development of a full-blown
Outreach and Marketing Committee campaign, both to increase general awareness of Northeast Village PDX and to attract prospective members. In addition to normal publicity efforts, the committee plans outreach to our older neighbors and their adult children through hospital social workers, employers, grocery store senior days, existing organizations that serve the elderly, and other "non-traditional" avenues.
The
Development Committee is preparing a comprehensive plan and timeline for fundraising, built on establishing relationships within the community. Reaching out to neighborhood associations and coalitions as well as individuals and businesses is the first step, and this step has already been initiated.
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See You at the Next General Meeting
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Our next general meeting will be held at 7 p.m., Wednesday, November 11, at Rose City Park United Methodist Church, 5830 NE Alameda, just east of NE Sandy Blvd. and NE 57th Avenue.
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A Report From the National Gathering
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By Margaret Baldwin
Last week I attended the Village-to Village National Gathering in Seattle. A total of 130 villages were represented by 320 people, of whom 60% were open and 40% were in development. There were presentations on many subjects including strategic partnerships, managing the front and back office, Villages and faith-based community partners, hub and spoke models, and advocacy for seniors, especially those who are under served.
Villages that have been open for a number of years are not static, but are working on community outreach and new partnership development while continuing to recruit and diversify membership and volunteer bases. Two Villages have a partnership with the City of San Francisco, which sees the Village model as a scalable, cost-effective alternative that will allow its Department of Adult Services to reach a middle-income group of people. These Villages can leverage their partnership with the city to obtain more grants and the city can meet its service goals for addressing the needs of 65% of older adults in San Francisco.
In Portland we may be a few years away from realizing a partnership like this one, but wouldn't it be exciting to be a more visible part of the solution in the Portland region to serve the needs of older adults?
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Attending the Village to Village National Gathering in Seattle were Portland-area participants from Viva Village!, Village Without Walls, Villages NW, and NE Village PDX.
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Have a conversation with any Village volunteer and you will find many intriguing talents and abilities. In this respect, a recent interview with Todd Coward did not disappoint. Todd's is the technical wizardry behind this newsletter and behind an e-mail survey of prospective volunteers that most of our readers received last February. He also sits on the Coordinating Council, the planning body whose once- or twice-monthly marathon sessions are moving Northeast Village PDX to fruition. And he will be working to transform our Website from an information site to one that serves an operating Village.
Todd brings to his work for our Village many years of leadership in both corporate and community settings. He spent 30-some years leading product development efforts in various divisions of Procter and Gamble, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. His work included five years in Japan helping the company to establish a presence there. This work involved equal measures of creating or improving products and conducting consumer research. Todd's computer skills were honed after he left Procter and Gamble to become president of a new Internet service company, Productivity Online.
In Cincinnati, Todd also got involved in a citywide project, Invest in Neighborhoods, an organization of 48 neighborhood associations that partnered the city with local businesses to raise funds for projects for every neighborhood (about $10,000 per neighborhood per year, with $100,000 coming from the city). Todd was president of the board as well as of his neighborhood association, which served a multi-cultural community.
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It's almost time to make your end-of-year donations. As you do so, please remember Northeast Village PDX. We are engaged in an important effort to help our older neighbors in northeast Portland remain in the homes and the community they love. Your gift is vital if we are to reach our goal.
Categories of giving are:
Visionary ($250+)
Sustainer ($100 - $249)
Partner ($50 - $99)
Friend ($10 - $49)
Please make your check payable to Villages NW fbo NE Village PDX and send it to:
Northeast Village PDX
c/o Margaret Baldwin
P.O. Box 18175
Portland, OR 97218-0175
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