In 2010, JLL started a High School Girls Business Plan Competition. Great program – designed to promote business knowledge for girls, giving them a foundation for success as they pursue careers beyond high school – but kind of a clunky name. Enter Girls in Business, the program’s new name. Says Kirsty Houck, Girls in Business Assistant Chair: “We are excited about our new name because we feel that it accurately describes our mission in a more succinct manner. In addition to a new name we have a brand new logo that we absolutely love.”

And what a program it is! The competition is open to all girls in Lancaster County in grades 9-12 (including home-schoolers) and it requires the girls to create and design an original business plan. The competition is a starting point for students to share ideas, gain exposure to business development, and build confidence in communication skills. The top 10 finalists will be asked to present their business plan to a panel of judges in hopes of winning $1000 for 1st place, $500 for 2nd place, and $250 for 3rd place. The award money is to be used for future academic pursuits or funding to start their business.

Another new feature to be introduced this year involves pairing each finalist with a mentor who has relevant business experience. The mentor will be a member of the Junior League who is business savvy and has real world experience to share with the participants. In addition to being advocates for the competitors, the mentors will meet with the finalists to help critique their presentation and help prepare them for the question and answer portion of the competition.

Truly a win-win situation for all the participants!

The program is in support of The Kashi REAL Project™, an initiative designed to raise awareness of the Real Food Deficit and amplify the work of non-profit organizations like The Junior League that are working to keep “real food” in the minds and hands of communities throughout the country.

Kashi decided to partner with The Junior League because of League-wide initiatives like our Kids in the Kitchen program, now in its seventh year, as well as the many exciting food and health projects by individual Leagues. This recognition of our commitment to the goal of promoting healthy nutrition in the communities we serve is a great reminder of what happens when more than 155,000 women volunteers come together to create lasting community impact.

What’s the catch? There isn’t one!

The Junior League is Kashi’s featured partner from January 31 to February 22, 2012.

Kashi will donate $10 every time a statistic related to the Real Food Deficit is shared via their Facebook page until the donation total reaches its maximum of $75,000. So please go to Kashi’s Facebook page, click on the Real Project tab, and click “Like” on the purple star to share…and tell everyone you know to “like” us, too!

The money we earn will be awarded to individual Leagues who apply for a grant—there are two levels, $2,500 and $5,000—to support their local KITK program. The grants will be distributed to winning applicants at this year’s Annual Conference in San Francisco.

Winning applicants will be selected based on their ability to demonstrate that funds will be used for KITK programs that make a measurable and sustained commitment to solving the Real Food Deficit in their communities!

It’s a great way to use social media to help a great cause…So do it today!

48 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute*
YouTube is the second largest search engine*
70% of branded content is created by consumers*
The average user of Facebook creates 90 pieces of content per month*
57% of people communicate more online than off* (really????)

This past Monday I had the good fortune to attend the Social Media For Nonprofits conference in New York City, organized by Darian Rodriguez Heyman and Ritu Sharma. In 2012 the series has been scheduled to visit San Francisco; Washington, DC; Chicago; Atlanta; Los Angeles; Seattle and New York City and I encourage you all to attend when it’s in your neck of the woods. It’s inexpensive, the presenters are approachable and the information shared is useful/valuable. It’s the second time in less than a year I attended this conference and had the privilege of sitting among my peers to listen to those well versed in the social media space (they all seem aligned in their thinking that there are no experts in the field as it’s evolving too quickly).

Monday’s topics ranged from content curation (halleluiah! And thanks to Beth Kanter and her special guest, Robin Good for reminding us that content should bring value to our audience(s) and that social media is a two way street) to fundraising (too many presenters to name…clearly this is a hot topic) to getting the most out of social media with a lean staff to a presentation by Google+ (why should nonprofits care??… Google’s question, not mine). There also was a presentation called Social Media for Nonprofit CEOs and while that might not seem like an immediate concern for most Junior Leagues it contained some really good information about the development of social media guidelines (and I know you’re all interested in that).

Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children spoke about how social media is changing the 93-year old organization (be where your audiences are…) and how her organization used social gaming to help raise funds for Haiti.

Interesting points by those who talked about fundraising:

• giving is emotional, you must awaken the heart to arouse the mind; giving = happiness so give donors the opportunity to be happy
• people don’t give because you have needs, but because you meet needs
• people don’t give to you, they give through you

This was a tools and tips conference (and there were a lot of information shared that will be helpful to you as you lead your Junior League and other nonprofits in your local communities), so have a peek at the presenters’ slide decks when you have a moment and let me know if you have any questions or would like to share a thought.

*stats shared by presenters at Social Media For Nonprofits conference.

“I’m a black and white person,” says Bobbie Sparrow, the spunky 76-year-old who is now an active Sustainer in the Junior League of Calgary, which she joined in 1961 after moving to town from Toronto with her husband. “I’m really honest.”

The simplicity of this self-assessment seems just a tad misleading for the mother of four who was widowed at the age of 37 and who by all accounts has led a very complex life in an array of arenas including business, politics, philanthropy, and volunteer service.

After serving as the president of three different businesses, Sparrow entered the realm of politics, and was elected to the Canadian Parliament as a Member of the House of Commons where she worked from 1984 to 1993 under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and then Prime Minister Kim Campbell.

While in Parliament she chaired two Standing Committees, first heading up the country’s Ministry of Natural Resources—which she is quick to point out encompassed not only mining, but also forestry, energy, oil and gas (mainstays for the Alberta province where she lives), coal, zinc, and gold, among other assets and industries—and then the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology, a post she was asked by the Prime Minister to take when it was created in 1988. In addition, from 1990 to 1993, she worked as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, where her training as an operating room nurse came in handy.

Though she says she’s slowed down in the last year, her reduced velocity still includes serving on four boards at one time, including the Calgary Southwest Federal PC Electoral District board on which she represents her “riding”—or electoral district—the Calgary Glenmore Provincial PC Association, and two medical boards, one of which studies the issues of infection, inflammation and immunity worldwide, and another that advises Calgary Laboratory Services.

“I thank my mom, my dad, and my brother for the fact that I am well educated,” she says, adding proudly that like many Canadians, she knows a lot about the world. “Every week at school we studied the news, not just in our city, but in the world. Politics were always a topic of supper-table conversation and there was always a news magazine lying around.”

Sparrow, who held an array of positions during her career at the Junior League of Calgary before being elected League president in 1969, went on to use many of the skills she acquired in the League as the Residential Chair of the United Way of Calgary, a volunteer role in which she raised money from the residential sector.

“I learned a lot from all of the projects and initiatives in which I was involved,” she says, adding that being so networked and leadership-oriented as a result of both her experience in the League and in running Student Council at her boarding school helped her handle her responsibilities with composure. “The League taught me a lot and it was full of such wonderful women with such wonderful backgrounds.”

In addition to being inspired by the AJLI conferences she attended over the years—San Diego, Boca Raton, Seattle, among others—one of her most memorable experiences was her work in the early days of the League’s Next–to-New shop, which sold clothing to disadvantaged families in the city.

“Getting to know these moms who didn’t have very much enabled me to learn so much about the world.”

Indeed her knack for grasping global issues—immunological diseases, the health insurance system, taxation, government funding for education, emergency services, and hospitals—and appreciating multiple points of view simultaneously is what enabled her to understand the motivations for Canada’s radical revision of its Social Security system in 1988, a move she says she hears echoing in the debt and deficit crisis currently playing itself out around the world today.

“We’re living longer and we had to learn that we have to put more money in now and take out less later,” she says. “It’s like taxes. Yes, you may have to increase them, but you could also argue that increasing them lowers inflation—you have to be able to see the other side of the coin.”

During her Active tenure in the League Sparrow says she was deeply affected by her work in the 1960s both with children with special needs and children with autism, a newly diagnosed condition at the time.

“There was a trailer next to a children’s hospital out of which we ran a school and the kids could go over to the hospital for their psychiatric treatments,” she explains. “There was a little boy named Tommy that I worked with every Wednesday morning and every once in a while he would look at me and suddenly I knew he was in the same world that I was in.”

Summing up a lifetime’s worth of achievements, Sparrow says she has been fortunate to have been healthy and to have “good genes.” She walks seven miles a day and still skis cross-country.

“I’m not 80 yet,” she says. “That’s when I go Emeritus . . . and that’s a big word.”

It’s no secret that what we call voluntarism is at the heart of what it means to be a Junior League member. We volunteer our time to create lasting community impact. Period.

But the Junior League of Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Inc. has come up with an interesting twist on voluntarism by involving members’ children in a project they can literally get their hands around. It’s called Little Hands, Big Difference.

JLNVB member and Community Vice President Laura Bangor explains: “I was Membership VP last year and we did a focus group asking members about what they wanted out of their League experience. Some of the feedback that we received was that our members would like social events that included their families, more ‘hands on’ community events, and having a link between our community and the ‘social’ aspects in the League. Using that as a jumping off point, the Community Council brainstormed over the summer on ways that we could work with Membership Council and ‘Little Hands, Big Difference’ grew from there.”

Little Hands, Big Difference is a classic League initiative. The JLNVB chose a community partner, Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia, and focused its volunteer hours last November on working on its 15th annual Mayflower Marathon food drive at a local mall. JLNVB brought together 15embers and their children and members of the community together for the Little Hands, Big Difference event (in the same mall as the Mayflower Marathon). The League also opened its event to the public and publicized it through Facebook and its community partners, which brought in non-members and their children as well.

The Little Hand, Big Difference format was designed to involve children (most between two and twelve) at two levels: fun and work. The fun part of the event had healthy snacks and Thanksgiving-themed games and crafts along with a chance to see the mall’s parade for the arrival of Santa. The work part involved sorting food into bins for delivery to the nearby food drive. The JLNVB purchased supplies of the 10 food items that the Foodbank indicated were their most-needed “kid foods” and participants brought other food donations. After they sorted the food, the children loaded the food bins onto carts and walked it over to the Mayflower Marathon.

All of this contributed to the overall success of Mayflower Marathon, which collected enough donations to provide 429,000 Thanksgiving meals to the needy in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area.

But what about the kids? Laura adds: “The children loved it because they were cheered and high-fived as they brought the food and delivered it. They were so excited and I think that it really made an impact on them, especially when they saw all the food that was being collected. Our goal was for the children to have fun and to share with them the joys of philanthropy and helping others. We do a lot where we reach out to children in need, but we also wanted to reach out to teach our children the importance of helping others. One child told us his favorite part of the day was ‘Taking the food to donate because there are people who need it and we don’t want them to be hungry.’ That was rewarding to hear.”

Mission accomplished.

Corporate finance executive, single mother, legislative insider, and life-long volunteer, Olivia Thomas has played a variety of impactful roles. Now serving as the executive director of Safe Place and Rape Crisis Center (SPARCC) in Florida’s Sarasota and DeSoto Counties, Thomas attributes her ability to toggle among multiple identities to a single skill set she acquired courtesy of the Junior League of Sarasota where she has volunteered for more than 17 years, ultimately serving as president from 2006 to 2007: civic leadership development and training.

“It was actually The Junior League that inspired me to make a career change,” says Thomas, who left a series of senior finance positions over the course of two decades in the insurance sector—including being named chief accounting officer at one of the area’s largest insurers¬–to pursue a career in the nonprofit world. “I found that I enjoyed my work as JLS President so much that I wanted to pursue community service full-time.”

In her role as SPARRC’s Executive Director, Thomas has applied her “for-profit” mentality to the nonprofit sector, while measurably demonstrating the versatility and transferability of skills such as negotiation, networking, collaboration, and consensus-building that she picked up in The Junior League, and in particular as an early and active member of the Junior Leagues of Florida State Public Affairs Committee where she met with local and state decision-makers and interacted with both lobbyists and legislators.

It is this combination of competencies, she says, that equipped her, a survivor of domestic violence who made it through a difficult divorce while raising two daughters, both of them JLS members, to re-brand and re-position SPARCC, Florida’s state-certified agency serving victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in two counties, to potential donors and clients, re-tooling the agency’s approach to client service from one that was reactive to proactive. Along the way, she reduced budgets while improving the efficiency and quality of service delivery for clients.

“As a survivor of domestic violence, I can put a different face on the cause in my community,” says Thomas, who served on several community agency boards before accepting her position at SPARRC. I especially enjoy my work as an advocate for the social change needed to end all forms of violence.”

Thomas’s career trajectory attests to the intrinsic value of in-depth volunteer experience, not only to the individual and the community of residents they serve, but also to corporate employers and colleagues, the business community as a whole, and nonprofit agencies.

“It took some consideration to take such a drastic pay cut [to pursue my nonprofit career], but I have found that I really don’t miss the money,” she says. “I’m a firm believer that things always work out like they are supposed to happen.”

Upon landing, the travelers were ushered into a winter wonderland. The children participated in several Christmas themed activities, led by Junior League “elves”, some by SkyWest employees donating their time, and some orchestrated with the help of the Pikes Peak Children’s Museum, with whom the JLCS is currently developing a partnership.

Photo by Jamie Smith Photography

Members of the JLCS’ Kids in the Kitchen committee helped the children make Reindeer Food, a tasty and nutritious treat consisting of quick cooking oats, dried fruits, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Once microwaved with water, Reindeer Food tastes suspiciously like a wonderful bowl of oatmeal!

Children also engaged in holiday games and crafts. The games included ice fishing for treats and playing snowball fight (with white balloons, of course). The crafts included creating a personalized ornament for each child, featuring their picture, snapped by the Junior League’s professional photographer, earlier in the evening. The photos were printed on site, and were incorporated into ornaments that the families could take home immediately.

After a very busy afternoon at the North Pole, the room full of elves and visitors suddenly noticed a great sound. Santa was arriving, landing in a helicopter! After being treated to this delightful sight, the children all took a turn meeting Santa, and receiving a personalized gift, as well as gifts to share with his or her siblings.

When it was finally time for the visitors to return home, many were amazed to discover just how easy of a walk it was to return to Colorado Springs. Return they did, though, and every one of them must have slept well and contentedly that night.

Photo by Jamie Smith Photography

All of these activities were provided to the families completely free of charge, and wouldn’t have been possible without the enduring generosity of JLCS Members and our amazing sponsors: Chick-Fil-A, Jamie Smith Photography, the Colorado Springs Airport, Sox the Fox – the Colorado Springs’ SkySox mascot, Integrated Deicing Solutions, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and SkyWest Airlines. In addition to Sky West’s incredible generosity as a company, and the phenomenal giving spirit demonstrated by many employees, also coordinated other activity sponsors, including a petting zoo, musicians, and demonstration of service animals.

For the past five years, this partnership between the JLCS and SkyWest Airlines has been going strong, and providing lifelong memories to some of Colorado Springs’ underprivileged families. The Junior League of Colorado Springs initiated the first launch of Fantasy Flight in 1996, in partnership with United Airlines. After a few successful years, Fantasy Flight was retired in the late 90s, allowing the JLCS to focus on projects appropriate to the times. The Junior League of Colorado Springs, in 2007, reinstated this event as a signature effort of the Community Service Corps committee; its ultimate “Done in a Day.”

Consider the Junior League of Oklahoma City. In its more than 80 years of service, JLOC has done a lot to achieve lasting community impact. The League’s first project was construction of the Walnut Grove Community Center, which served approximately 55 children by providing health care, clothing, arts & crafts, books and community field trips. JLOC’s members held fundraisers in order to pay for that and other early programs, quickly becoming respected community leaders. In the following eight decades, JLOC members gave their time and talent to improve their city in a wide and diverse range of projects and initiatives, ranging from the arts to children and family issues to health and literacy. Even today it has 17 active community projects throughout Oklahoma City.

In recognition of JLOC’s 80+ years of service to Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma History Center has unveiled a kiosk on the third floor of the downtown Oklahoma City museum dedicated to JLOC’s history. The kiosk, created in partnership with the Oklahoma History Center, will remain in place for five years.

With more than 200,000 people visiting the Oklahoma History Center each year, JLOC sees a tremendous opportunity for the League to portray its history and the enormous impact members have made in the community.

We agree.

How the initiative has evolved in recent years says a lot about JLP’s commitment to its green initiative – and its willingness to change course to avoid roadblocks.

The Campus Community Gardens project was designed to address the lack of green space in Philadelphia, particularly in and around schools, by building urban gardens at schools and teaching children about urban agriculture. A public school in North Philadelphia was chosen but the ground planned for the garden was tested and found to be unsuitable, because of contamination, for gardening. JLP’s team countered with an offer to create raised gardens but the school district wouldn’t agree.

End of project? No. JLP did an urban gardening mural inside the school and then found a new community partner, In the Garden with Tree House Books, an afterschool program for local kids, and built fresh vegetable gardens there. Urban gardening and healthy nutrition programs soon followed.

Another project that arose from the Campus Community Gardens program was HIP (Healthy Imaginative Playful) Kids, a partnership with Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse, a free kid’s playground within Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. The primary focus of JLP’s program is to encourage outdoor play and exercise in Philadelphia’s youth and to promote a connection with nature, creativity, and imagination. JLP planted a wildflower garden, built a living willow structure, and works with Smith year-round on special programs to involve whole families, including a back to school event with a healthy snacks component, a family fitness/nutrition event, and exercise/craft event.

The Green Volunteer Corps was designed to provide JLP Provisionals to work in Fairmount Park to keep it clean, beautify one of its meadows, recruit volunteers from the local community and schools and conduct environmental workshops. After a slow start, the program was consolidated into done in a day projects (DIAD) because there just wasn’t enough to do as a stand-alone initiative. Now there are two scheduled DIADs focused on maintaining the park’s historic mansions and replacing invasive plants with new plantings, as well as three days a year when Fairmount Park personnel can call on JLP members to work on the park’s other volunteer projects.

In the third aspect of Project GREEN, JLP successfully collaborated with Riverbend Environmental Education Center and the Norristown school district in suburban Philadelphia to create a supplemental science curriculum for elementary schools within the district. The RESPECT program serves 400 children, and also involves evening presentations with parents in attendance along with the kids.

Finally, over the last 12 months, JLP is moving towards a larger “umbrella” focus of healthy living that will involve handing off Project GREEN initiatives to existing community partners and developing a new focus area (past themes have included literacy and women on welfare).

JLAA funded a three-year grant to the University of Michigan’s University Center for the Child and Family to develop a program designed to decrease the incidence of relational aggression by increasing community awareness of the problem and developing key resources for use by community groups in the Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County area.

The result was a program that is called Strong Moms, Strong Girls, and it provides girls in grades 4 – 7 with the tools needed to challenge relational aggression. By teaching girls how to navigate conflict constructively, SMSG aims to help participants form strong, healthy friendships and support systems during these often difficult years. Through workshops, community outreach, consultation and other resources, SMSG also aims to support mothers/caregivers, educators and mentors by offering unique resources to help girls in the late elementary and middle school years. The University of Michigan points out that relational aggression actually peaks in late elementary and middle school years and is especially prevalent among females.

Trained JLAA volunteers implement the program with community groups, particularly schools, that request help with workshops for mothers and daughters, parents and educators, mentors and, of course, the girls themselves.

The Junior League of the Lehigh Valley heard about SMSG and has adopted it and is currently in the third year of expanding promotion and awareness for the program in the greater Lehigh Valley area. Bi-annual Figuring Out Friendships workshops, a collaboration of Lehigh University and The Junior League of the Lehigh Valley, strives to empower girls and their mothers in engaging in conversation about relational aggression, positive self-image, and how to navigate the world of female friendships. Free Community Presentations about RA (Relational Aggression) are offered at public locations such as schools and The Red Cross.

The JLLV has received positive feedback from mothers, daughters, educators, and others who have attended the different facets of the program. Giving girls the tools they need to empower them to navigate through social interactions will in turn make them stronger, more empathetic, and positive leaders in their communities.