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| 3/28/04 |
Contact Information: |
| Women's Center of Fayetteville Receives Non-Profit Award |
Rosimar Melendez |
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(910) 483-8489 |
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rosimar@fyifayettevillenc.com |
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Raleigh � The Women�s Center of Fayetteville received a statewide honor today when the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits selected it for the 2003 Nonprofit Sector Stewards Awards. It was one of three North Carolina groups recognized for the exemplary stewardship that is expected of all nonprofit organizations. The Center announced the 2003 Awards at its annual conference in Winston-Salem with 900 community leaders from across the state participating.
Founded in 1990, the N.C. Center for Nonprofits helps nonprofits to lead and manage their organizations effectively, cut costs, and collaborate with others to achieve their mission in the community. The Center is a coalition of more than 1,500 nonprofit organizations of all sizes and types in all 100 counties across North Carolina.
Accepting this award for the Women�s Center of Fayetteville were board members Charles Halsey and Kalvin McDaniel; Executive Director Sylvia Ray; Judi Superak, director of the Women�s Business Center; Belinda Smith, a small business consultant at the Women�s Business Center; Denise Giles, executive director of the Cumberland Interfaith Hospitality Network, which is one of the Women�s Center�s collaborators; and Denny Shaffer, a long-time donor and volunteer. Mary Holmes, executive director of the Cumberland Community Foundation, nominated the Women�s Center for the award.
Jane Kendall, president of the N.C. Center for Nonprofits, said, �Our Board of Directors chose the Women�s Center of Fayetteville for this award because of its focus on addressing the root causes of community problems, its resourcefulness in using its limited dollars to achieve its mission by collaborating extensively with other nonprofits in the community, and its excellent practices in ensuring that its Board reflects the diversity of the community it serves. These are all hallmarks of the nonprofit sector as it works to improve the quality of life in North Carolina.�
Opened in May 1990, the Women�s Center is the result of the vision and determination of a small group of Fayetteville women who recognized the need for a facility where information on community services could be collected and distributed to the community. Soon, however, the Center�s board and staff realized they needed to do more than provide information. They saw that until women achieved economic self-sufficiency, more information could not improve their lives. They also saw that this self-sufficiency would require addressing the whole family, not just women. They did their homework and identified the need for jobs and for decent, affordable housing for low-income and homeless families as their first step on the road to economic sustainability.
In 1998, Sylvia Ray of the Women�s Center and Denise Giles of the Cumberland Interfaith Hospitality Network convened a broad range of community leaders to share their idea of purchasing and developing a transitional housing project called Ashton Woods. Mary Holmes of the Cumberland Community Foundation said, �This was a new idea in Fayetteville. It required research, planning, and a leap of faith by their boards and this community, both financially and in volunteer hours.� Ashton Woods successfully opened 20 houses in June 2000 and already has put 21 homeless families on the road to self-sufficiency.
�Committed nonprofits across North Carolina are taking leadership to find systemic solutions to society�s problems,� said Kendall of the N.C. Center for Nonprofits. �By focusing on the root causes of poverty for families rather than just the symptoms, the Women�s Center is bringing about the kind of long-term change required to make a real difference in the community�s future.�
Charles Halsey, a board member at the Women�s Center, said, �Our board is very excited about teaching people the skills and giving them the tools to be successful.�
The Center�s founders realized that community services should complement, not compete with each other, and that a strong network of helping agencies was vital to the community. Now 13 years later, the organization�s work involves dozens of partnerships.
�People are not born knowing how to build effective partnerships between organizations. Collaboration takes trust, honesty, persistence, constant nurturing, and a lot of meetings and time. It is a fine art that many in the nonprofit sector have learned as they strive to achieve their vital missions in the community despite limited resources,� said Kendall. �The Women�s Center has demonstrated extreme resourcefulness in achieving its mission through creative partnerships that leverage every dollar and every volunteer hour it receives for more impact in the community.�
Examples include the Women�s Center�s work with the Veterans Administration to secure a significant discount on the purchase price of the �Lease to Home� houses and with Cumberland County Community Development, local banks, and a national nonprofit organization to arrange the financing required. In addition, the Center has an ongoing relationship with the Cumberland Interfaith Hospitality Network. Denise Giles of this Network credits the Center�s Sylvia Ray. She said, �The collaboration between our two organizations requires a high degree of ethics, responsibility, and integrity. Sylvia and the Women�s Center achieve this by avoiding any sense of territoriality or competition. This makes it a genuine cooperative effort.�
When asked about the Center, long-time supporter Denny Shaffer commented, �How the devil do they get done all that they do? It boggles the mind.� He said of Sylvia Ray, �She has a greater sense of what�s possible than most of us do.� Kalvin McDaniel, a Women�s Center board member, said of Ray, �She is working with people all over the place � the library, other nonprofits, everywhere. Her strongest quality is her skill in collaboration.�
Kendall said, �The N.C. Center for Nonprofits also selected the Women�s Center of Fayetteville for the Nonprofit Sector Stewards Award because it shows how a nonprofit can strengthen its organization and achieve its mission by embracing diverse perspectives and cultures on its board of directors.� One of the 55 specific benchmarks included by the N.C. Center for Nonprofits in its Standards of Excellence: A Self-Help Tool for Nonprofits� Organizational Effectiveness is that �Board membership and leadership should reflect the diversity of the communities served by the organization.� This checklist of good practices for nonprofit organizations is now available in English or Spanish from the N.C. Center for Nonprofits in Raleigh.
Kendall pointed out that the Women�s Center seeks board members from a wide range of ages, walks of life, and economic levels as well as races and ethnicities. The board includes six African Americans, two Latinos, one Iranian, one eastern European, and nine whites. Unlike many women�s centers, its board also includes six men. To ensure that its board reflects the population that the Center serves, at least a third of board members must be from lower-income families.
The N.C. Center for Nonprofits serves as a statewide network for nonprofit board and staff members, an information center on effective nonprofit organizational practices, and an advocate for the nonprofit sector as a whole. Its mission is to serve, promote, and represent the nonprofit sector and strengthen nonprofits� effectiveness as they improve North Carolina�s quality of life. The Center can be reached at 919/790-1555 or www.ncnonprofits.org.
The Center established the annual Nonprofit Sector Steward Awards in 1995 to recognize nonprofit organizations that demonstrate exemplary stewardship of the public trust that is expected of them as tax-exempt organizations. Nonprofits are nominated by individuals in their own communities. The Center�s statewide Board of Directors serves as the Selection Committee.
In addition to the Women�s Center of Fayetteville, the Center honored the Mediation Network of North Carolina based in Raleigh and the Salisbury Community Development Corporation in Salisbury. All three winners receive recognition with nonprofit leaders across the state and with their elected officials, $500 to invest in professional development for their board of directors and staff, and a work of art by Durham artist Galia Goodman to commemorate this statewide honor.
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