MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Dear Friends of the Mandel Center,
This past winter and spring has been an exciting time at the Mandel Center. Faculty, students, alumni and nonprofit professionals have participated in a wide range of activities and events.
One of the goals of the Mandel Center is to enable students to draw upon the resources of Greater Cleveland's nonprofit community. This semester, several of the program's classes have engaged a number of nonprofit executives. These leaders have included: Glenn Haley, President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Cleveland, Brian Broadbent, President and CEO of Business Volunteers Unlimited, and Tara Turner, Director of External Relations for Cleveland Zoological Society, just to name a few. Mandel Center students have also worked closely with a number of local nonprofits through the Center's courses. Some of the agencies involved over this past year include: Community Resources Services, Early Childhood Options, Eliza Bryant Village, Golden Age Centers, Habitat for Humanity, Near West Theatre, Roots of American Music, Society for Rehabilitation, and Transitional Housing.
In addition, the Center had two major events where well-known national leaders were brought in to share their unique contributions to the growing nature of the nonprofit field. The first event was in honor of the celebration of the Center's Youth Philanthropy and Service (YPS) program's 10th anniversary. Steve Culbertson, President and CEO of Youth Service America (YSA), spoke at the 10th YPS Annual Workshop. YSA is an international nonprofit resource center that partners with thousands of organizations committed to increasing the quality and quantity of volunteer opportunities for young people, ages 5-25, to serve locally, nationally and globally. For two years in a row, Culbertson was named to "The NPT Power & Influence Top 50" presented by The Nonprofit Times.
Another major event was the 2006 Mandel Center Nonprofit Awards. The Leadership in Nonprofit Management Award was first presented in 1995 by the Mandel Center and its Alumni Association. This year we added the Organization Innovation Award, which recognizes an organization that has demonstrated its ability to use resources in innovative ways to achieve its mission. So many excellent candidates were nominated for these awards that the committee decided to select two winners for the Organization Innovation Award. The awards this year were celebrated at a luncheon in March with the Leadership Award going to David Simpson, President of Hospice of the Western Reserve, and the Organization Award going to both Cleveland Foodbank and AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland. I want to express our appreciation for the excellent work of the 2006 Nonprofit Awards Selection Committee, headed by David Abbott, Executive Director of the George Gund Foundation.
The guest speaker at the Mandel Center Nonprofit Awards luncheon was Bill Shore, founder and executive director of Share Our Strength (SOS), the nation's leading anti-hunger, anti-poverty organization that mobilizes industries and individuals to contribute their talents to fight hunger and poverty. Shore is also chair of Community Wealth Ventures, a for-profit subsidiary of SOS that provides strategic counsel to organizations interested in creating resources generated through profitable enterprise to promote social change. Shore was also named to "The NPT Power & Influence Top 50" presented by The Nonprofit Times.
In this issue of Nonprofit E-Notes, there is a first hand account of being a member of our Leaders' Links program. Leaders' Links and Leaders' Networks are peer-to-peer learning programs offered by the Mandel Center. You will also find updates on exciting work being done by our faculty members in the new Faculty Highlights section. In this issue, there is also a Faculty Feature on Professor David Hammack's research on the history of philanthropy. The Student Spotlight for this issue focuses on Matthew Charboneau, a multi-talented MNO candidate who finds the time to perform with a jazz/Afro-Cuban trio throughout the Cleveland area while preparing to graduate this May. In addition, there is an update on the Center's Treu-Mart Youth Development Fellowship Program, which recently announced its third cohort of fellows. You will also read about Annemarie Grassi, who is this issue's Treu-Mart Fellow Feature, as well as a CNM student at the Center. We have also added a Staff Spotlight featuring Rebecca Zirm who tells her story of how she went from working for a top law firm to becoming the Mandel Center's Director of Recruitment. Stay tuned for a new alumni feature section, which we hope to debut in the next issue of Nonprofit E-Notes.
It is hard to believe that another academic year is ending. We look forward to breaking ground on our new building over the coming months, with an anticipated opening in the fall of 2007. All will be notified when we celebrate our ground breaking this coming fall, at which time we can share the design of our new 28,000 square foot building to be located on Bellflower Road in close proximity to our partner schools.
Best wishes for a fruitful and enjoyable summer!
Sincerely,
Susan Lajoie Eagan
Executive Director
