Dear Friends,
From our new Fiesta medals to our community outreach, there’s much to share in this edition. Enjoy.
Exciting News!
Fiesta Medal Coming Soon
We are so excited to offer Area Foundation Fiesta medals this year! The medal, pictured here, is scheduled to arrive in March and will be a fun opportunity to share and trade.
$10 million and counting
Several news outlets announced our wonderful news – the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation, a fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, was a significant part of awarding more than $10 million to 100-plus nonprofits from discretionary funding. The awards also include funding from 60 other legacy funds. To learn more, read here.
5,000 likes and counting
The word is getting out about the Area Foundation. We hit a significant milestone – 5,000 likes on Facebook.
Area Foundation in the news
Thank you Bobby Blount of the San Antonio Area African American Community Fund for mentioning the Area Foundation on KENS 5, recently. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, we’ve included a link to the story on our website. Bobby talked about the African American Community Fund’s partnership with LiftFund that will further support African American entrepreneurs. Also, the Express-News wrote a wonderful story about Oasis. The nonprofit received a $30,000 grant from the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation in May 2019 to build a room for fitness classes. You can read the story here.
Area Foundation in Community
The Community, Engagement and Impact (CEI) team has conducted more than 40 meetings with nonprofits since the 2019 operational funding grants were announced. These touchpoint meetings with funded and unfunded nonprofits answers the request nonprofits voiced in our market research to have additional information at the end of each grantmaking process.
The Development and Donor Services team is working on new strategies to better meet the needs of our donors. One strategy addresses how we communicate with donors who are leading increasingly busy lives. As a result, information will soon go out to our donors regarding the revamp of quarterly statements. Stay tuned for more information.
SALSA (Successfully Aging and Living in San Antonio) and the CEI team hosted the vice president of Professional Affairs for the Gerontological Society of American on Jan. 17. The focus of the mini-workshop was to share the latest information on the national initiative titled Reframing Aging. The initiative guides communities on how to change cultural thought on aging through the words we use.
Staff in the Community
I had the pleasure of being the featured speaker at the Planned Giving Council of San Antonio’s Jan. 14 meeting at the Plaza Club. Meanwhile, Lisa Brunsvold presented our donor services to the Independent Insurance Agents group on Jan. 15.
Cadence Corbin, program officer on the CEI team, has been named to the SA2020 Communications Committee. Cadence is also a member of the Spurs Young Professionals Leadership Team; and is an inaugural member of Excel Academy, a 10-month cohort that integrates developmental relationships with leadership principles within the Excel Beyond the Bell network.
Gary Wise, director of technology on the Strategy and Innovation team, has been appointed as co-chair of the 2020 Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG) conference. The conference will take place in San Antonio later this year. TAG supports the efforts of local and national community foundations including the Ford Foundation, the McArthur Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Notables
Join our own Dorian Williams, Sr., Ph.D. at a book signing at The Twig Bookshop on Friday, Feb. 21, from 5 to 7 p.m. to celebrate his recently published book, “Strategic Planning for Black Folk.” Dorian serves as our learning & development manager.
New citizen – Congratulations to Fabi Rocha, website specialist, who became a U.S. citizen on Jan. 23.
Congratulations to Araceli Calvillo who was recently promoted to Donor Relations Assistant in the department of Development and Donor Services. Araceli currently serves DDS and the Marketing, Communications, and Technology team as the administrative assistant.
Area Foundation Workshops/Trainings – Don’t forget to check out the list of workshops offered by our Learning and Development department. This is a great way to learn from instructors who are experts in their fields. For a list of workshops, go to the events calendar tab at saafdn.org.
We are stronger together,
