I.   Information on 2008 Annual Awards Dinner
II.  Civic Engagement Project
III. Web Based Resource Directory

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I. Information on 2008 Annual Awards Dinner:

Dear Friends:

The Board of Directors of the Montgomery County Foundation, Inc. is pleased to invite you to the Fourth Annual Awards Dinner on February 7, 2008. The event will include honoring Peter Cogan, Children’s Aid Society and John Taaffe, Carson Valley School with the Fourth Annual John C. Webber Award for Innovation in Human Services; Weston M. Somerville, Prudential Financial with the Third Annual Montgomery County Foundation Corporate Volunteer of the Year Award; and Muriel H. Anderson with the Board of Directors Service Award. Special Initiative Grants will be awarded to local nonprofit organizations as well.

The Montgomery County Foundation Corporate Volunteer of the Year Award recognizes an individual who has contributed to the nonprofit community as an integral part of his/her corporate and personal ethic. This individual will be recognized for individual impact on people and business in the Montgomery County community.

The John C. Webber Award for Innovation in Human Services recognizes an individual who has contributed to the development of and advancement of the services provided to those in need in our community.

The Montgomery County Foundation Board of Directors Service Award recognizes an individual for contribution of time, effort and pro bono services directed at the success of the Foundation.

New this year is The Critical Impact Award which celebrates the philanthropic impact of an individual and/or business that has made a difference in the lives of people through volunteering. The 2007 recipient is Joseph Autovino, founder of Lockheed Martin Corporation’s “A Friend’s Christmas” project  that he created  20 years ago in order to bring fellow employee volunteers together to support individuals and families in need at holiday time.

The Foundation takes this opportunity to invite you to congratulate the award winners and to make a gift to the Foundation in honor of the awardees. Your contribution will assist the Foundation in continuing its mission of supporting community organizations and programs through philanthropy. Please note the details on the enclosed invitation. Donors will be recognized in the program book. Sponsorships opportunities are also available.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Awards Dinner and to working together in the future to resolve important community issues.

Sincerely,  Payson W. Burt   Chairperson

Sincerely, Virginia Frantz President & CEO

Please join the Board of Directorsof The Montgomery County Foundation, Inc.

In Honoring

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II. Civic Engagement Project:

The following is the Executive Summary from Phase 1 of the Atlantic Philanthropies grant that he Foundation received.  The Foundation is embarking on the planning for Phase 2 of the project.

Learners to Leaders;  Engaging Elders in Personal and Community Change Through Civic Engagement

Executive Summary

Objectives:
The initial phase of the Learners into Leaders project is based upon demographic data analysis and other results for the  50+ population resulting from Montgomery County’s award winning Boomer*ANG Project. Results from a County-wide Visioning process which explored a variety of issue and opportunity areas, including Civic Engagement, were used as a starting point for activities related to this project. That Visioning process identified two major objectives regarding civic engagement for continued attention in Montgomery County, one of which was:

• Create a clearinghouse to identify, engage, organize, and recognize the unique skills of a broad base of senior volunteers

The current project, Learners into Leaders, is directly related to expressed community objectives, using asset based community development methods as its approach. It also reflects our intent to initiate the development of a core of learners who will evolve into community leaders at the local level to promote the continued mission of changing the perception of and about older adults and civic engagement.

The specific objectives for this project include:

1)  Undertaking a community building/civic engagement process and project in Montgomery County.  At the heart of the project is developing and using an inventory of the “gifts” of individual older residents in Montgomery County, to initiate a change in perception of the capacities of the 60+ population, as well as those of Montgomery County’s associations, businesses and institutions;

2)  Training a cadre of individuals to undertake community asset mapping.  This cadre will form the core of the expansion of this phase to a County-wide civic engagement project;

3)  Developing and refining the tools to undertake a County-wide asset mapping project which will continue as a central portion of an expanded civic engagement project;

4)  Creating an asset mapping process centered on the development of a County-wide Civic Engagement project for older adults in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania;

5)  Contributing to the new Montgomery County Web-Based Resource Directory project, with data collected by older adults growing from learners into leaders.

Methodology:
The Montgomery County Foundation, Inc. has undertaken a comprehensive community asset mapping process to initiate the creation of a County-wide civic engagement project.  To develop and guide the process the Foundation has engaged and Maturity Mark Services Co. to undertake the first phase of this project to include:
 
- discussions and interviews with key individual and group stakeholders in the community including municipal and county government representatives, businesses, faith-based groups, service agencies, ethnic minorities, and citizen groups throughout the County

- Identification and training of a cadre of community-based “asset mappers”, whose activities took place in an asset mapping process described in greater detail below

- an initial asset map of individuals, associations, and organizations within the County using principles and tools developed in conjunction with the Asset Based Community Development Institute (ABCD) at Northwestern University

Asset Based Community Development starts with a framework that in any community “the glass is half full,” that is, the community has an abundance of resources in its citizens, associations, organizations and businesses to address its own needs, and that by identifying and organizing these innate community capacities the community itself can and will initiate self directed action and responses to its own needs. The approach has been used internationally to successfully create more vibrant, responsive and progressive communities.

More specific to this phase of the project, an asset map is an inventory of the strengths and gifts of the people who make up a community. Asset mapping reveals the assets of the entire community through identifying gifts of the “Hand; Head; Heart; and Human (friends)”, and highlights the interconnections among them, which in turn reveals how to access those assets.

After recruiting 50 community volunteers primarily from community based service organizations, local employers, and interested citizens, these initial “learners” were introduced to the concepts and practices of asset based community development, trained in the use of asset mapping tools for individuals, associations, and organizations which they used to engage residents, etc. in their local community in an initial asset mapping process. They were encouraged to pass this training and its tools on to others in the community, thereby becoming local leaders in community capacity building and development.

Key Findings:
The most significant findings emerging from this project encompassed insights regarding both information about the civic engagement capacity among the citizens, associations, organizations and businesses of Montgomery County as well as the process of identifying and using the assets that the community has available to it for the civic engagement project.

The asset mapping process confirmed the great abundance of all of the “gifts” of the citizens age 60+ in the county. One-hundred seven personal asset mapping interviews were conducted by the trained mappers, 315 community associations were identified as potential resources for civic engagement activities, and potential resources for use by the community in 30 institutions/organizations/businesses were identified. Aside from the specific gifts and capacities identified, there was also a more informal sense of the eagerness of those who participated in the asset mapping as either asset mapper or interviewee to encourage and become more involved in civic engagement activities. Their informal comments in the asset mapping process about how to prepare for enhancing the opportunities for civic engagement were also very revealing in that there was a steady theme for a concerted and coordinated effort to alert residents 60+ about civic engagement opportunities, and to encourage and organize more opportunities for the civic engagement aspirations of the citizenry.

The recruitment for and actual conduct of the asset mapping process was also revealing in two ways: one regarding the enthusiasm on the part of the service agencies about the concept of citizens being capable of creating and maintaining community based projects using their own resources and gifts, and the second regarding the perception that this same process is a potential threat to the funding and a potential reduction in the need for the services many agencies provide. Some of these agencies were reluctant to actually complete the asset mapping process in their own communities despite a capacity to do so, while others with an orientation to seniors as something other than “needy” readily accomplished their objectives for community asset mapping for civic engagement opportunities and resources.

Conclusion:
This phase of the project offered clear evidence that asset based community development approaches are an appropriate and effective way to initiate civic engagement activity and mobilize capacity building within the community. Such a process clearly articulates one method for changing the perceptions about older citizens from a needs driven, service focused view to that of a more robust and available resource for the community. In the future, the process should initially rely more on direct action by citizens and informal associations while service agencies are trained and influenced on the benefits of civic engagement as the expression of the capacity of those 60+ for act on their own behalf and at their own direction. The “needs-based” approach to older citizens is firmly entrenched in the service network, and further education and reassurance about asset based approaches to civic engagement are a necessary and high priority for future expansion of the project.  Promoting the E-Generation’s (Experienced Generation) assets will make a positive change in the community.

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III. Web Based Resource Directory

Dear Agency/Organization:

We are pleased to invite you and a representative from your agency (up to two attendees) to a training session for the Web Based Resource Directory.  We have entered skeletal data about your agency into the database already and assigned an ID and password.  The person attending the training session should be experienced in working with computer based programs and be the individual designated to work with the Directory on a regular basis, including updating and changing information in the Directory as appropriate.  During the training you will be able to change your ID and password and enter detailed information about your agency.  You will also have an opportunity to ask questions about the process and the project overall.

Training will be at the Computer Lab at Montgomery County Community College, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell on the ground floor of the Science Building, Room 106 (it will look like the back entrance to the building).  Park in the Morris Road parking lot nearest this building (check www.mc3.edu for a campus map and directions).  The parking lot and campus are handicapped accessible.  If one would like to park closer to the building there is a handicapped parking lot.  Please contact Joyce Galloway at 215-641-6532 for a handicapped parking permit.

Please call the Foundation for available dates.  You must pre-register to attend!

Please RSVP to Ellie at 610-313-9836 or email execoffice@mcfoundationinc.org as soon as possible so that you get the date and time of your choice.

What to bring to the training:

1. Paper and pen/pencil and
2. Detailed information about your agency, as described in the attached form.  Use the attached form for the additional information that needs to go into the database.  Bringing this information to the training session will make entry of the data about your agency much easier. Please note you may paste and copy information from either your website or word document (bring CD) onto the database, if you so choose.  If you have any questions about the form, please contact Ellen Covner at 610-313-9836 or email operations@mcfoundationinc.org. 

We look forward to seeing you as we all work together to create this unique resource for Montgomery County residents and organizations.

Virginia Frantz
President & CEO
The Montgomery County Foundation, Inc.
2 W. Lafayette Street, Suite 120
Norristown, PA  19401
Phone:  610-313-9836

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