Columbus Foundation donors and friends attended a holiday luncheon on December 10 featuring four Columbus, Ohio organizations named "No 1" in 2009.

» Hear the conversation among Central Ohio's respected leaders whose organizations ranked #1

» Visit our site to read more

Jewish Community Center offers camp experience for youth with special needs

Each summer, a special group of campers descend on the Jewish Community Center of Greater Columbus' (JCC) College Avenue campus, excited about the opportunity to enjoy days filled with activities from arts and crafts to music and swimming.

» Visit our site to read the whole story

» Listen to a podcast featuring Tim Kauffman, assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Columbus, as he talks with the Foundation's Sidney Hargro about Camp Arye. (5 min)

» Click to read podcast transcript

Photo courtesy of Camp Arye

The Columbus Foundation's Sidney Hargro sat down with Lucy Bernholz of Blueprint Research & Design, Inc. and Katya Andresen of Network for Good during the DonorEdge Community Leadership Conference, hosted by The Columbus Foundation, to discuss the changing landscape of philanthropy in a 2.0 world and how nonprofit organizations can effectively leverage social media to enage donors.

Listen to the podcast of this conversation, recorded at The Columbus Foundation on June 3, 2009. (18 min)

About our guests:

Lucy Bernholz, blogger at Philanthropy 2173 and author of Creating Philanthropic Capital Markets: The Deliberate Evolution, is the founder and president of Blueprint Research & Design, Inc., a strategy consulting firm specializing in program research and design for philanthropic foundations. Read more about Lucy Bernholz.

Katya Andresen develops and executes Network for Good's marketing strategy, including consumer outreach, media relations, corporate partnerships, and nonprofit marketing, and is the author of Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes. Read more about Katya Andresen.


For more information on the DonorEdge Community Leadership Conference, please visit the Donor2.0 page on our website by going to www.donoredge2009.org.

Pictured above (l-r): Katya Andresen and Lucy Bernholz
Photo by: Jeremy Sony

Lutheran Social Services social enterprise projects fuel self-sufficiency

For most of us, the hum of lawn machinery is a welcome sign of spring. For a group of male clients at the Fairfield County Emergency Shelter, the sound has grown to represent not only the change of seasons, but a new beginning. 
 
In 2008, Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio (LSSCO) founded Fairhaven Lawn Care, a for-profit business in Lancaster. Fairhaven, the first social enterprise venture for LSSCO, provides job opportunities for clients of the shelter who have fallen on hard times, hoping to get them back on their feet and prepare them to re-enter the job force.

Read the full story on our website.

Listen to Leslie Poole, president of Lutheran Social Services of Southern Ohio, explain the importance of their services. (7 min, 21 seconds)

Award-Winning Interactive Exhibits and Performances  

The current exhibit in the Elijah Pierce Gallery at the Community Arts Project, has soul. Titled, The Men, The Music, The Message, The Movement: Martin, Malcolm and Marley, it examines the link between these historic civil rights icons and the music that resonated during a tumultuous time in our nation's history.

Read more about Community Arts Project, Inc. as featured in our March e-News.  
 
And hear from Dr. Barbara Nicholson as she shares some history about the Kings Arts Complex and talks more about their current exhibits and mission in our March podcast. (Length 4 min 45 sec)

"This is an opportunity for us to remind some and inform others that the music during the period that each of these civil rights activists lived had a connection to the missions they were on."  — Dr. Barbara Nicholson 

To learn more about Community Arts Project, Inc. visit PowerPhilanthropy at www.columbusfoundation.org.

Programs encourage independence and job preparedness
 
Each of the women gathered in the weekly New Directions class has a unique story. A diverse mixture of race, age, education, and economics, these women have joined together for one goal-to learn the tools needed to begin or continue a career that will help them take care of themselves, and often the children that depend on them.
 
For more than 25 years, New Directions Career Center has offered workshops and programs targeting women entering or re-entering the workforce in central Ohio. Many of these women are in transition as a result of divorce, death of a spouse, or after leaving an abusive situation. As a nonprofit leader in career counseling...

Read more about New Directions in January issue of The Columbus Foundation e-News.

Also, listen to Linda Danter, executive director of New Directions Career Center, tell us how the Center is changing the lives of women in our community in our January podcast. (Length 5 min 10 sec)

To learn more about New Directions, visit PowerPhilanthropy at www.columbusfoundation.org.