NonProfit NewsPod: Greater Sacramento Impact & Philanthropy Awards Launch Their First Year

Jeff Holden: [00:00:00] Welcome to this nonprofit podcast News pod where we amplify the voices of nonprofit leaders making a difference in their communities. I'm joined by Colby Bell, financial Services Professional in New York Life to share how a casual gathering of nonprofits for social sharing. Has now turned into the first annual Greater Sacramento Impact and Philanthropy Awards.

Colby, welcome. 

Colby Bell: Hey, thanks for having me, Jeff. 

Jeff Holden: Looking forward to talking to you about this because it's so neat to see that there is finally an awards event for our community nonprofits. 

Colby Bell: Yes, yes. I, I'm excited about it too, man. The nonprofits out here, you guys deserve it, so this is, it's much needed. 

Jeff Holden: When we connected at a mixer that you were having last year.

Colby Bell: Mm-hmm. 

Jeff Holden: It was clear you had a grander scheme for all of this. You wanted something more of it than [00:01:00] just a social gathering or people getting together and turning it into something more. And it looks like finally that has happened. How did it all come together? 

Colby Bell: Yeah, man, it, it started my, my passion for helping nonprofits came about, man, probably two or three years ago.

Um, I had a, a client who was in the nonprofit space and up until that point, I was unaware of all the work that they did to support the community. And it just was like, somebody has to do something for these people and give them their flowers while they're here. And so that's. That's kind of how I found myself in the space and over the years, it's, it's been great to, I just made great connections on the philanthropist side, but then also on the nonprofit side and was able to, this last year actually get New York Life Foundation involved and supporting, uh, the grander vision of giving local nonprofits their flowers and, and, you know, thanking them while they're here.

Jeff Holden: You even did that at the mixers to some degree. You recognized the [00:02:00] people that were there, but somehow you were able to speak to your supervisor Jonne. 

Colby Bell: Mm-hmm. 

Jeff Holden: And say, Hey, we gotta get into this foundation to really recognize and we can create something a little bit bigger, which I applaud you on, because that's no small feat.

First of all, just put the event together. But secondly, to find some funding to really recognize these community nonprofits. 

Colby Bell: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I'm really glad that, uh, I have a, a supporting colleague like Jonne, uh, to kind of help get this vision further. 'cause we, we wanna see something like this grow because the stuff that nonprofits are doing on a day-to-day basis, it, it doesn't equate to us just doing something like this once a year.

So it's like we put us putting this on, we wanna make sure that it's the most. Fun people can have and just kind of like I said, just have a great time doing it because these people are boots on the ground every single day supporting the different communities that they're working within. So Jonne and I put this together and it was great to have New [00:03:00] York Life say like, Hey, we'll support as well.

Jeff Holden: I can't wait to get into some of the details. So these fun little gatherings have now morphed into the Greater Sacramento Impact and Philanthropy Awards. What's being awarded? What are you giving? 

Colby Bell: Yeah, so we have a few different categories. Each category has three nominees and I, I'm gonna, if you don't mind, I'll go over each of the, the categories so that you can kind of know Sure.

What, which, which areas are we're actually gonna be awarding. So we have youth empowerment, senior services, animal welfare, environmental stewardship, small but Mighty Health and Wellness. Educational access, housing and homelessness, and then food security. And then the last one is gonna be community building.

Jeff Holden: Love it. 

Colby Bell: Yeah. And, and I wanna make a big shout out to, to Brad and SVP. They, they helped us out quite a bit as well, and they're one of the main [00:04:00] partners on this too. They helped us. But like really bring this thing home as well. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah. And as Brad Squires for Sacramento Venture Philanthropy, somebody we work closely with in many situations, including their Fast Pitch program, which is an unbelievable program that also recognizes nonprofits in a very different way.

Yep. So. Tell me a little bit about what was the process you went through to determine or identify who would be the 30 finalists? 

Colby Bell: Yeah, so man, it, it was a, a, a good conversation. We, we spent about a good two weeks going over who we were looking to nominate. This first year is, is mainly gonna be, you know, our organization SVP, looking at, hey, which are the organizations that are doing a lot of the work in the community.

Jeff Holden: Mm-hmm. 

Colby Bell: And these were the ones that stood out in these spaces. Now, that doesn't, I don't want people who didn't get nominated this year to not feel like, Hey, we're, we're doing work in this space. This is the, the first year of many. This is something we plan on growing. But yet we went over a, a, a [00:05:00] vetting process between us all to just kind of say, who do we want as the, uh, the initial.

Nominees for the Gsip Awards. But yeah, we're, we're looking to, that's one area that we're actually gonna be looking to expand upon is maybe we're thinking about doing more of a community voting to get like, Hey, who is the, uh, community choice for nominee this year or so? That's something that we're, we're gonna be expanding, but this current year we had to vet it out ourself though.

Jeff Holden: Well and understandable. It's the first year and subsequent years always improve on the process, so it's exciting to know that there were 30 finalists. And then is what happens of the, of those 30 finalists, they were sending out the registration or the voting apps so that people could then vote on those 30 and you would then decide the top 10 on vote getters for each of the categories.

Correct? Yep. Top three for each of the categories of the 10 [00:06:00] categories, I should say. 

Colby Bell: Yes, yes. 

Jeff Holden: I was speaking with Brad a little earlier. I'm not even sure you were aware. 7,000 votes came in over that weekend, two weekends ago. 

Colby Bell: That that is crazy, man. The voting window was open for a short amount of time.

So to get 7,000 votes is absolutely crazy. Just seeing how much people are involved with local nonprofits, that's, that's crazy. 

Jeff Holden: And I'm sure many of us had our emails blowing up that weekend. As you know, in our case, we've spoken to many of those. I'm sure Brad's emails, Hey, vote for us. Vote for us. Vote for us.

It, it made it difficult, but nonetheless fun. 

Colby Bell: Yeah, it was exciting to, to hear. I I, last time I looked at it was 1900 and I was like, I was blown outta the water. 1900 is crazy, but 7,000, that, that's, that's just unbelievable, actually. 

Jeff Holden: Extremely impressive first year event that sells. People are really engaged and they're interested and they wanna see something happen.

Yeah. [00:07:00] 

Colby Bell: Yeah. 

Jeff Holden: And each category winner is the amount is the same for each of the categories. Correct. It's evenly divided over the 25,000. So it's $2,500 in unrestricted funds to that organization. 

Colby Bell: Yeah. Yeah. So it's out of each category, since there's three, three nominees, one of them will win and that person's gonna receive, yeah, $2,500 directly from the New York Life Foundation.

Jeff Holden: And the event is open to those interested, but registration's necessary because there's a limited number of people that the facility can house. And if somebody wants, if somebody wants to attend Colby, how do they register? 

Colby Bell: Yeah, so we, we have a site. We just go on that site and register. At this time, we would say register for yourself, just so you can get in there.

But like I said, this is the first one. So if you can't make it in this year. We'll, we'll, we'll give you the details for next year. 

Jeff Holden: Yeah, we'll, we'll 

Colby Bell: figure it 

Jeff Holden: out. 

Colby Bell: It's filling up pretty 

Jeff Holden: quick. I'll have the link for that as well in the show notes. So somebody can just go there and, and get their registration in [00:08:00] so they don't miss the opportunity.

'cause it will, I mean, I'm gonna say sell out, but it's, it's a free event at this point in time. Again with looking forward to the next couple of years of what it could look like. I just see this big awards event and yeah, a whole different sort of situation. Colby, why don't we walk through the details for everybody, just be sure they've got them.

It's April 9th. Yeah. Place time, et cetera. 

Colby Bell: Yeah, so it's April 9th. It's happening at Arcade Underground. It's in the old Sac area, and it's gonna be from five 30 to 7:30 PM. It's gonna be some, some small bites and some different drinks and things like that. So that's the timeframe. It's five 30 to to seven 30 is what we're putting on the, uh, invitation.

But yeah, that, that's, that, those are the, the actual event details. 

Jeff Holden: Excellent. And again, those will be in the show notes, easy for somebody to click on, come out and cheer on your finalists as well as the winning recipients. Of these $2,500 awards, 10 different categories. [00:09:00] What a fun event This is gonna be, the social ones were fun.

I think this is even gonna be better because there's actually recognition of jobs well done. 

Colby Bell: Yeah. 

Jeff Holden: Colby, congratulations on turning a good idea into a great one. New York Life has surely stepped up in their support of this first year event. That's very neat to see. Brad Squire, Sacramento Venture philanthropy, outstanding first year partner, and I'm proud to say we're a partner too this year.

We look forward to supporting so many more of these events, and I know this one's gonna be a hit. I'm really anxious to see everybody on April 9th. Let's have some fun. 

Colby Bell: Let's do it. 

Jeff Holden: Thanks for listening. If you like our program, please subscribe and give us a positive review and share with someone. You know, this News Pod is a production of Hear Me Now Studio.