Notes from Network meeting.

March 2, 2006.

The Boland Room, 55 Lake St., Gardner, MA  01440

Introductions:

Introductions of participants.

Introduction of Syra Pinto Executive Director of the Twin Cities Latino Coalition from MWCC.

Thank you to Sharon Zimmerman for housing us and supply refreshments!

Nonprofit Spotlight:

Syra Pinto the Executive Director of the Latino Coalition housed at MWCC, presented about her organization.

• The coalition is housed at the Mount in the new Leominster Offices. The Coalition works on collaboration, gang prevention, intervention, does home visits and has a part time employee that is a worker of the Spanish American Center.
• They are a membership Coalition. Some signed on to have dialog, some were dragged on, some walked in to a meeting, members include, adults, stakeholders and young people. The meetings are open to the public.   
• Syra points out that the collaboration with the police used to be a hostile environment, but now, they have built a significant collaboration with the help of Chief Ed Cronin.
• Fitchburg has a 40% Latino population, representation and collaboration was very much needed.
• How the collaboration works; Trust, Honesty, Integrity. Having dialog and discussions.
• Over 300+ Children were touched by the summer parks program that the police and the Coalition worked on last year.
• The police and the Coalition are applying for a major grant for gang prevention. The Coalitions approach to gang prevention is different than most, they try to find the reasons why people join gangs, their approach isn’t “anti-gang”, they re-channel the energy of the gang members into civic engagement.
• Leaders in the community have come together with common values and a want and need for change, they wanted to create opportunities for citizens, and building value based discussions and listening. They wanted to work on a project to create optimism in the community, so that everyone would believe in the good of what they were doing. They created the summer parks program, and because it was so successful and crime went down in the city of Fitchburg with youths during the summer, they are expanding to Leominster this summer because the stake holders wanted it!
• What do we do in Gardner to address collaboration and tolerance where we have a growing population of Latino’s?

The Spanish American Center has a representative that goes out weekly to Gardner.  Go to the Churches, more directly the women that are the driving force behind the church.

• The Latino Coalition goals and visions consist of, increasing capacity of city/schools, talking to the student body, understanding process of systematic change, bringing about sustainable change. For the next 2 years their immediate goal is to build capacity and shift culture

Updates:

The Legislative work group is planning an event for the staffers of Politicians. The event is planned for May 5th. The goal behind this event is for the staffers to get to know the Nonprofits in this area a little better,

What we do?

How can we work more effectively together?

There will be display tables, profiles of organizations. The profile format is being worked on.

There will also be success stories shared.

We have a sponsor!!! Dolphin Resources!

Keynote speaker has been selected.

Task Groups broke down to their groups.

Legislative Work Group

Public Image Work Group

Collaboration Work Group

Group Review, action, plan, assign tasks:

Legislative work group work notes:

Present: Carol Dubour, Sharon Zimmerman, Brenda Castrichini, Tamela Barrett, Laura LaBrack, Susan Ostberg, Joanne Foster.

Event:

Elected Official Staff and Nonprofit Sector Staff Workshop

May 5th, MWCC Gardner Campus 8:30am-1:30pm.

Key Note Speaker: Bob Antonioni

Please see excel work sheet put together by Sharon Zimmerman for more details.

Public Image Work Group notes:

Put together by Maxyne D. Schneider, SSJ

Present: Tom Moser, Gloria Maybury, Leslie Kusmirek, Jeff St. Jean, and Maxyne Schneider.

Outcomes:

1. We recommend that the INPD website add a page for resources for nonprofits (techsoup.org, for example).

1. We recommend that the list of contacts for the radio shows and cable access TV stations that Joanne Foster compiled be put onto the INPD resource page.

1. We recommend that the INPD offer a workshop on writing press releases, public service announcements, and proclamations. It could be two to three hours in length. (Tom Moser would be willing to be the presenter.)

1. We recommend that the INPD do a survey of its members to see what type of support might be of interest for optimizing organizations’ websites. (Maxyne will draft a survey for the group’s critique and then it will be forwarded to INPD for their review and decision.)

1. More work needs to be done by the group in regard to using cable and radio for promotion of the nonprofit sector. While that is being done we recommend that those who do have the opportunity to be interviewed use a part of the occasion to promote the sector and to speak of our growing collaboration. When we do bring greater formalization to our plans for use of the media, we recommend that at least some “shows” be devoted to multiple organizations and their collaboration.

Collaboration Work Group

Present: Marcia Hopper, Kristin Wilson, Syra Pinto, Nancy Davis, Shirley Coit, Nicole Gagne

Joanne Foster, Andrea Hart

• Discussed the importance of not only stating your name and organization at the beginning of the Networking meeting but why you are here, and what your organization does that is important to you.

• Discussed the Institute Website, the updated website will be up and running in a few weeks time!! We will have a *did you know* section, where we will have weekly updates, and facts that members share.

• Having a large calendar of events of all the Network Nonprofits to add in their events (fundraisers) check out each others calendars, and post local events and important meetings and dates. Agreed we would all start collecting dates from organizations.

• Discussed having a project for the group to do, Syra will be sending us information on a Human Rights organization.  

• Discussed challenges in filling out profiles that a few organizations have voiced.

The question regarding “challenges” does not disclose your weaknesses; it helps organizations work together more effectively. Discussed obstacles.

• Profiles need to be sent out again. Work on tying together the organization profile asked by the Institute with the profile for the Legislative event.