Announcing this year’s winning teams and impressive results of all 7 projects
The Ignite Louisville team working with YouthBuild Louisville was selected as winner of the 2012 Yum! IGNITES Louisville Challenge and will receive a $3,000 gift as a result.
A panel of judges heard presentations from the seven Ignite Louisville teams to select the winner at the Ignite Louisville Class of 2012 graduation on April 25. YUM! Brands Foundation surprised the winning agency by matching the $1,500 contribution from the Leadership Louisville Center and awarding a second nonprofit, EDGE OUTREACH, with a $1,500 contribution. For the first time, YUM! Brands Foundation recognized all of the outstanding work of the teams and will contribute $500 to each of the additional nonprofit agencies.
Winner: YouthBuild Louisville
Left to right: Stephanie Greene, 21C Museum Hotel; Ben Ruley, Hosparus Inc.; Lynn Rippy, executive director - YouthBuild; Chris Kipper, Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau; Chris Cunningham, board chair - YouthBuild; Heather Harris, Yum! Brands, Inc.; Kelly Kohlstruk, Brown-Forman Corporation; Thomas Wallace, PNC Bank; and Alex Banet, WellPoint, Inc.
The winning team partnered with YouthBuild Louisville to help the organization build a strategic plan and a marketing plan. They conducted a nonprofit marketplace survey to benchmark YouthBuild next to other local nonprofits and better understand how to encourage additional support and increase awareness. They facilitated a full board and staff strategic planning retreat that led to the output of a new aligned Mission and Vision Statement, an updated strategic plan for 2012-2014, and updated brand messaging.
Runner-up: EDGE OUTREACH
Left to right: Meredith Hughes, Deming, Malone, Livesay & Ostroff; Robert Polk, Horseshoe Southern Indiana; Carrie Halstead, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kentucky; B. Todd Bright, Kentucky Farm Bureau; Jaime Warren, Norton Healthcare; Robert Polk, Horseshoe Southern Indiana; Cynthia Sysol, RecoverCare, LLC; and Seth Moraniec, GE – Appliances & Lighting.
This team joined forces with EDGE Outreach and accepted the challenge of connecting key individuals with the ability to put Louisville on the international map for water treatment, training, technology. The team fostered connections between the major players in Louisville who possessed a passion for our community and for water issues around the world to create the W.E.T (Water, Education, Training) Suits task force.
The Academy at St. Andrews
Left to right: Dena Dossett, Jefferson County Public Schools; Emily Bridwell, Yum! Brands, Inc.; Allison Zeillmann, Humana Inc.; Blaine McLaughlin, Wells Fargo Insurance Services; Brian Wigginton, Ernst & Young LLP; Amy Seng, University of Louisville Athletic Department; Craig Miiller, OfficeWare, Inc.. Not pictured: Gabe Riggs, Norton Healthcare
TheAcademy at St. Andrews is a non-profit tuition based school that serves children with autism and developmental disabilities. The team was able to provide the Academy at St. Andrews with a three-year strategic plan focused around fundraising, education, and enrollment, a full-feature, top of the line color copier, public relations, marketing, and social media strategy, iPad application for teachers and parents to use to engage students, development of a donor database, and target audience identification. The Academy at St. Andrews can now better serve the needs of children with autism and development disabilities in the Louisville community and to serve as a benchmark educational program.
Dare to Care Food Bank
Left to right: Jackie Keating, Dare to Care Food Bank, Brian Riendau, Dare to Care Food Bank; Garland Straub, Yum! Brands, Inc.; Eric Weihe, Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC; Anne Cannon, Norton Healthcare; John Sieg, Fifth Third Bank; Elizabeth Troutman, UPS Airlines; Jean Lee, PNC Bank; and James Reddish, Greater Louisville Inc.
This team worked with Dare to Care Food Bank, in partnership with local farms and volunteer groups, to launch the “Adopt-A-Farm” Program to connect local farms with volunteers that can help glean fields for leftover produce to donate to Dare to Care. Dare to Care has a shortage of locally-sourced food to provide to the agencies it serves. This program will help in establishing long-term relationships with local farms and receiving locally-sourced food. The team created a new application on the Dare to Care website that lets farmers submit their information about their fields that need to be gleaned including number of volunteers needed, dates, times, and contact information. The project will be submitted and the Dare to Care volunteer coordinator can then pair volunteer groups with the farms.
Dress for Success
Left to right: Reanna Smith-Hamblin, Better Business Bureau; Chris Schulz; Lori Riddle Eberenz, Bandy Carroll Hellige Public Relations; Shaun Chelf, Hilliard Lyons; Kristi Klotz, UPS Airlines; and Len Gant, Mountjoy Chilton Medley LLP. Not pictured: Matt Williams, Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP.
Dress for Success Louisville was looking for a proactive way to start an earned income venture through the sale of donated clothing and accessories that are not suitable for client job interviews and surplus donations. After the compilation of case studies from other DFS markets, and further investigation, the team determined the best option for DFS to undertake was to hold a series of sales, three or four times per year at various locations, (known as pop-up sales). A separate nonprofit entity, to be named “Lou Lou’s Closet,” is being formed to host the sales benefiting Dress for Success Louisville.
Jewish Family and Career Services Center for Enterprise Development
Left to right: Michael Bush, Northwestern Mutual; Valerie Sickles, Main Line Broadcasting; Chris Garrett, LG&E and KU Energy; Jenny Heitkemper, Yum! Brands, Inc.; Joshua O'Bryan, Frost Brown Todd; Elizabeth Monohan, Humana Inc.; and Travis Frick, Dean Dorton Allen Ford.
The team working with the Jewish Family and Career Services Center for Enterprise Development immediately identified the need for a fresh new brand. The team delivered this, renaming the Center for Enterprise Development to Navigate Enterprise Center, creating a new logo and developing a highly functional new website – http://www.navigatecenter.org/. The team planned a micro-business showcase to market existing clients, significantly expanded the volunteer pool through new strategic partnerships, submitted grant applications and loan requests, created a marketing platform, and delivered a host of resources such as donor, media and volunteer databases, as well as fundraising tools to help sustain Navigate. The team will continue to work with Navigate through a newly created advisory committee dedicated solely to Navigate Enterprise Center.
Kentucky Humane Society
Left to right: Lindsey Ransdell, The Community Foundation of Louisville; Kory Kelly, Actors Theatre of Louisville; Heather Hise, Goodwill Industries of Kentucky;Megan Goheen, Brown-Forman Corporation; Ben Johnson, Greenebaum Doll & McDonald PLLC; Brandie Nardi, Citi Cards; and Phillip Roberts, Hilliard Lyons.
This team worked with the Kentucky Humane Society to improve their Waggin’ Trail Walk for the Animals fundraiser, an annual event which has experienced declining participation and revenue in recent years. The team reinstated the previously disbanded volunteer planning committee and structured it to address sponsorship and revenue, team recruitment and retention, PR and marketing, and event logistics and activities. The team embedded themselves within the planning committee to encourage and facilitate proper function of the committee, and developed a year-round communications plan to keep the event top-of-mind and ideally retain participants and sponsors from year to year.