Nashville – Area nonprofit groups are invited to apply for design of a new web site created by students at The Art Institute of TN – Nashville as part of the school’s community service initiative. The design services will be provided at no charge through the college’s annual Web Raising, which gives students an opportunity to apply their art and design skills to projects that support the needs of community organizations.WebRaising is based on the idea of an old-fashioned barnraising. At no cost to the community organizations, the WebRaising team combines their creative and technical expertise to build a new Web site for a non-profit group in their community. The final “raising” of the site takes place on a single day during April, which is National Volunteer Month. The target launch date is April 19, 2008.

CNM President, Lewis Lavine was featured this morning during a WPLN story about the Maddox Foundation. Here is the transcript:

WPLN News Transcripts
Produced daily by your WPLN News Staff
Maddox Foundation Gets Direction from Court
Thursday, March 27th, 2008

A Davidson County judge gave direction this week to a local charitable foundation that’s been tied up in courts for years.

Shortly after the accidental deaths of Dan and Margaret Maddox in 1998, one of the family’s foundation directors moved the trust fund to Mississippi. Among the questionable purchases made from the foundation was a minor league hockey team. A lawsuit filed by Davidson County District Attorney Torry Johnson brought half of the trust back Nashville – roughly 55-million dollars.

Wednesday’s ruling establishes a five-member committee that will name a new board of directors for the fund. Lewis Lavine of Nashville’s Center for Non-Profit Management worked as a consultant on the Maddox case.

“There is some question about their actual intention. There are some primary sources that describe what they had in mind. As was described in the courtroom yesterday, it’s going to focus primarily on young people and on environmental issues.”

The new board of directors will oversee the distribution of nearly 3-million dollars in grants each year. That’s on par with many of the corporate foundations in Nashville and a million more than Metro government budgets annually for non-profits. Lavine says he hopes the Nashville-based Maddox Foundation can be up and running by the end of this summer.
By Blake Farmer

Posted on NashvillePost this morning:

Probate Court names ‘Trustee Nominating Committee’ for Maddox Foundation
In addition to tapping well-known nonprofit players, court also approves tweaks to trust agreement

 By Walker Duncan

03-27-2008 9:40 AM -
A Davidson County Probate Court yesterday signed an order that allows the Dan and Margaret Maddox Charitable Trust to return to Middle Tennessee. In addition, Judge Randy Kennedy tapped a five-member Trustee Nominating Committee to help select a new board of directors.

Comprising the committee is a group with strong backgrounds in the nonprofit world. The group includes:
- Lewis Lavine, head of the Center for Nonprofit Management
- Former vice mayor Howard Gentry
- Kay Simmons, former executive director of the Nashville Alliance for Public Education
- Congressman Jim Cooper’s outreach director, Brenda Wynn
- J.D. Elliot, who serves as president of the Memorial Foundation of Nashville

In addition to forming that committee, the court also amended the trust agreement, which now states that the trust will have a focus in aiding “activities that make a positive difference in the lives of young people and the conservation of wildlife resources.” Additionally, the trust will only make grants to Middle Tennessee organizations or those whose principal activity is to be performed in Middle Tennessee.

The lengthy battle over the trust’s $55 million ended with a settlement last May.

From Today’s  Tennessean:

Ensworth School to construct four Habitat homes

By RACHEL STULTS
Staff Writer

Volunteers from Ensworth School will begin construction on four Habitat for Humanity homes at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, in celebration of the school’s 50th anniversary.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees and parents will build the homes in partnership with the families who will buy them.

Construction will take place over the course of four weekends, through April 20.

The four homes will be built on “Tiger Circle,” named after the Ensworth School mascot, in Timberwood, the Nashville area’s second all-Habitat community located near the intersection of Brick Church Pike and Briley Parkway.

When the neighborhood is complete in 2010, the community will be home to more than 375 family members.

For 15 years, pre-first grade students at Ensworth have held an annual penny drive and the money they’ve collected has funded the creation of driveways for Habitat homes.

Posted yesterday in the Tennessean:

Mayor Karl Dean Walks to Prevent and Treat Sexual Abuse

Joe Bass
Reader Submitted

Nashville, TN — Mayor Karl Dean will be participating in the 7th Annual “Walk in Their Shoes” 5K for the Rape & Sexual Abuse Center. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the Mayor will help kick it off by joining counselors and survivors of sexual abuse in speaking for a short program preceding the walk.

“Many survivors of sexual assault feel like they are on their own dealing with an issue that most people don’t talk about,” says Tim Tohill, President of the Rape & Sexual Abuse Center. “Having Mayor Dean’s visible support of survivors adds a very strong voice to this issue. Many survivors will gain strength and courage by knowing that Mayor Dean cares enough about this issue to become personally involved.”

Following the program, Mayor Dean and a host of concerned Nashvillians will walk across the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge and up Broadway. They’ll be joined by the Pearl Cohn High School Marching Band. The Walk is orchestrated in partnership with “Soles4Souls,” and participants will be bringing pairs of shoes to line the Shelby Street Bridge.

Who: Mayor Karl Dean and 1,000 Fellow Nashvillians

When: Saturday, March 29th

Registration at 8:00AM

Walk at 9:00AM

Where: Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge, up Broadway and

Program in Parking Lot R of LP Field

How: Register at www.rasac.org or call (615) 259-9055

Registration is a suggested $10 donation, and the first 500 to register get a free t-shirt!

About RASAC:

The Rape & Sexual Abuse Center opened almost 30 years ago in 1978. Since then, we’ve helped more than 15,000 children and adult victims of sexual abuse and assault. Our Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day for victims of sexual assault, and our counselors see more than 650 people a year, 53% of whom are children.

Every year, our education and community outreach programs (such as Safe@Last and Be. Developing Healthy Relationships) reach more than 100,000 people. And perhaps most importantly, no one is ever turned away from an inability to pay.

Interesting column from the Tennessean’s Gail Kerr. She talks about Dean’s move to get nonprofit grants awarded based on merit:

It’s clear Dean is no Purcell Jr.By GAIL KERR

Nashville Mayor Karl Dean stood before the Metro Council on Tuesday afternoon and presented a budget riddled with service cuts and employee layoffs. He got a standing ovation.

Huh?

Dean never mentioned the name of his former boss and predecessor, Bill Purcell. In fact, he tipped his hat instead to the budgeting skills of Gov. Phil Bredesen, who is Purcell’s nemesis. But it didn’t take a magic wand to spot he-who-was-not-named between the lines.

If there was any lingering doubt from last summer’s election that Dean is not going to be Mayor Purcell Junior, he put it to rest with this budget presentation. Dean is becoming master of the message. Part of that message: keeping his campaign promise to fully fund schools and fully staff the police department.

But another part of that message was loud and clear: Dean intends to undo some of what Purcell did.

Like nearly empty Metro’s savings account. Dean made it clear that he wants every extra dollar in revenue to go into restoring Metro’s fund balance reserve. The city is committed to more bricks-and-mortar projects than it can afford. That provoked the New York bond houses to list Nashville on a “negative watch.” That’s not good.

Purcell had a testy relationship with the council. Dean has courted them. He takes their phone calls. He is respectful. In the budget presentation, the words “openness” and “transparency” were used on two PowerPoint slides.

Dean’s budget also proposes a sweeping elimination of four government offices begun by Purcell’s finance director, David Manning, who created a system called “internal service fees.” Each city department had to kick back part of its budget to handle things like payroll. Government grew and grew.

Dean gets standing O

Dean’s budget closes Manning World. Dean’s finance director, Rich Riebeling, in a slip of the tongue (or was it?), referred to such layers of red tape as “fat.” Manning World drove the council nuts because they couldn’t figure out how to cut it. That’s one reason they created little slush funds for each member to spend in their districts.

Dean addressed that, too: He wants grants to nonprofits to be awarded through a merit-based grant program, to get the politics out of it.

When Dean was done, council members jumped to their feet and applauded. They joked about going ahead and passing the budget as is.

It won’t be that easy, of course. Those 200 layoffs Dean proposes have faces.

But for this moment, Dean should go to a Metro library branch (before hours are cut back) and check out the classic TV show The Honeymooners, laugh at Jackie Gleason and shout out loud for all to hear:

“How sweet it is.”

CNM has announced its “Meet the Funders” panel. The workshop is on April 10 from 8:00 to 9:30 am and is free for CNM members.

Here are the organizations that will be there, and the representative from each: 

• The Cal Turner Family Foundation – Cabot Pyle
• Pinnacle Financial Partners – Gina Scott
• Dell, Inc. – Ken Bissell

• The Frist Foundation – Pete Bird

Click here to register.

Mayor Karl Dean just unveiled his budget proposal, and part of it is a ten percent reduction in grants for nonprofits. However, as stated by the director of the Oasis Center, Hal Cato, the application process may be easier to navigate with the proposed changes. Here is the story reported on WPLN this morning:

Metro Grant Process Aims to Give Agencies Fair Shake

In years past, the budget proposal from the mayor included line items for each agency. This year, organizations will apply for grants and receive them based on merit, with 750-thousand dedicated to domestic violence, another 750-thousand for education and afterschool care, and 500-thousand for community service agencies.

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Metro Nashville’s pot of money to fund non-profits has taken a hit along with the rest of the city budget but it’s not all bad news.

Mayor Karl Dean’s budget proposal announced this week reduces grants by 10-percent to roughly 2-million dollars.

But Hal Cato, director of the Oasis Center, says a new application process should help target the money and prioritize the grants.

“Non-profit funding has been largely based on who had a relationship with which Metro Council member and who lobbied the hardest. This actually takes some of that out of it and puts money behind those agencies that are addressing the city’s most serious social service needs.”

Oasis, for instance, focuses on runaways and victims of domestic violence. The organization plans to apply for funding once the process is announced.

What are your thoughts? Is this a positive change that will take the politics out of the grant process?

The Alcohol and Drug Council, located at 2612 Westwood Drive, Nashville, has approximately 2,000 square feet of rental space available at this time and will have 4500 square feet available as of 1-1-09. The building is centrally located (in the Melrose area near the I-65 / Wedgewood exit), safe, attractive and affordable. Space rents for $13 per square foot.  Receptionist services, small and large meeting rooms, copying and fax machines, etc. are also available. For more information, please contact Mary McKinney, Executive Director, at 615-269-0029.

On February 21, CNM organized a customized training in Jackson, TN. The training was presented by the Jackson Arts Council and the topic was “Developing & Implementing P.R. Plans for Nonprofits.” CNM Consultant and Katcher, Vaughn, and Bailey partner Aileen Katcher conducted the session. You can read about how it went in a post from Aileen on the company blog, by clicking here.