Giving Institute Colleagues:
January came and went and now I am in my final 6 months as chair of Giving Institute (GI). I look forward to passing the baton to Brenda Asare of Alford Group and know that Paul Koreen of KCI will move to become first vice chair and in line to follow Brenda as chair in July of 2025. Meanwhile, Ted Grossnickle, immediate past chair of GI, is busy building a nominating committee to identify our next slate of officers (not counting Brenda and Paul, who are “locked in” to their respective new roles) and continue our work of identifying board members interested in future leadership roles at GI. Stay tuned to hear more about the nominating committee in the coming weeks.
I want to wish a warm welcome to GI’s newest members: McAllister & Quinn and Orr Group. McAlister & Quinn has not yet named a board representative for GI. We will be welcoming C.J. Orr as Orr Group’s board representative. To my understanding C.J has already reached out to GI to see where he might engage to help the Association. More on our new members forthcoming from our Membership Committee.
Please note our next board meeting will take place in Denver on March 2-3. As of this moment we have over 40 people registered to join us. We have many educational programs lined up for this meeting. Thank you to Brian Gawor of RNL, who is leading the effort to provide strong programming around the meetings. We will have lighting rounds, roundtable discussions, opportunities to meet new members, walk arounds in downtown Denver and a session featuring local nonprofit board members from Denver. There will also be a fun social event for Thursday evening’s dinner at Tivoli Brewing Company. I hope you can join us.
Our January webinar, “Becoming an Ally,” was a great success. We had close to 100 registrants, including many GI firm colleagues not currently sitting on the GI board. Program chair Ben Golding and the committee have been working hard to provide meaningful programming for all GI member firm employees, and this event was perhaps the most successful such event outside of a board meeting or Summer Symposium. The session was led by our good friend and DEI consultant, Dr. Gloria Chance. Please note Dr. Chance will be with us in Denver. She will lead a panel of GI firm representatives who will share their firm’s journey and progress with diversity, equity and inclusion. Panelists include Summers Hammel of Benefactor Group, Kate Roosevelt of Campbell & Company and Drew Clancy of Publishing Concepts.
Finally, please mark July 19-21 on your calendar for the 2023 GI Summer Symposium (SS). Our co-chairs for this event, Lee Ernst and Ryan Woroniecki, are hard at work preparing for a great gathering in Indianapolis. We hope every GI member firm might be represented at the SS this year, and that many firms will choose to send multiple colleagues to the event. Stay tuned for more information. Here is a primer: have you ever ridden around the racetrack at Indianapolis Motor Speedway?
