pro bono

Michelle Obama Inspires a Cooperative Spirit

November 19, 2018

Let me preface this by saying no matter which way you lean, you can still read this post. I say this because if you have even an inkling of objectivity—no matter your politics—you have to admit Michelle Obama is one classy lady. And this post is about her.

This post is not about politics (to prove my sincerity, I also admire Barbara and Laura Bush).

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk Michelle Obama and her recent open letter.

“Failure is a feeling long before it is an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear.”

In preparation for the release of her memoir, Becoming, the former first lady recently addressed an open letter to the readers of the Chicago Defender, a newspaper heralded as the “national voice for black Americans.” Of course, I admire that she hasn’t forgotten her roots in Chicago’s South Side. And I love that she credits who she is today to her parents, the teachers who taught her, and the neighbors who looked out for her. But what I find most compelling is her message of hope and cooperative spirit in the face of fear and negativity. She encourages hope not just for a select group of people, but for the whole community—a community working together for the good of all.

“It’s why teachers stayed up late grading papers and summer-camp organizers dedicated themselves to kids all across South Shore. And it’s why my parents invested themselves so deeply into my older brother Craig and me. My mother became one of the most active members of the PTA at Bryn Mawr, raising money for new equipment, throwing teacher-appreciation dinners, and lobbying for classes and strategies that would better serve the neighborhood’s children.” —Michelle Obama

Sharing the Cooperative Spirit

Michelle Obama’s open letter is truly inspiring. When we stand up together, we can push aside fear. When we work together for everyone’s benefit, amazing things can happen.

Next Tuesday, November 27, is Giving Tuesday. It’s also the day I open my mailbox for pro-bono applications. Each year Adunate accepts two pro bono projects for greatly reduced or no cost. These are projects I strongly support and believe will positively impact God’s creation, his people, or his ministry.

My interests include, but aren’t limited to:

Agriculture & Animals
Architecture
Arts
Children
Environment
Faith
History
Humanity
Food & Drink
Sustainability

If your organization needs creative support in the coming year, click here for an application. Then, to guarantee your project’s success, be sure to click here!

My deadline for submissions is December 31, 2018. I will let applicants know of my decision in January.

Go Far, Go Together

November 28, 2017

Frame of honeybees: Go Fast, Go Alone. Go Far, Go Together
Two weeks ago I was excited to join together with 400 go-getting women for the inaugural Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED) Conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Spearheaded by Laura Gallagher, president and founder of the Creative Company, it was an awesome day of connection and inspiration. Gallagher paralleled us to migrating geese as they skein together in formation for their journey.

Three weeks ago a similar gathering of entrepreneuristas took place in Madison; the Women’s Food & Ag Network (WFAN) Conference. While the heel height may have been different, the energy and empowerment were just the same. Being a food and ag woman myself, let me use my honey bees as an example. This sisterhood of collective intelligence were abuzz all summer producing food to last the winter. Goodness, am I talking bees or women farmers here?

Whether we’re geese or honey bees, when women get together great things happen for the good of all. Put a shared passion before us and we change the world. Think Women’s Suffrage Movement, the Hillside Club, or Wisconsin’s Soil Sisters.

Getting together. Working together

With this in mind and because today is Giving Tuesday, my mailbox is now open for pro-bono applications. Each year Adunate accepts two pro-bono projects for greatly reduced or no cost. These are projects I believe will positively impact the good earth God gave us and the people who inhabit it.

This year I’m especially interested in working with organizations involving women. My interests also include, but aren’t limited to:

Architecture
Arts
Children
Faith
History
Humanity
Natural Food & Living
Nature & Animals
Preservation & Sustainability

If your organization needs creative assistance in the upcoming year, click here for an application. Then, to guarantee your project’s success, be sure to click here!

Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2017. I will let applicants know of my decision in January.

Supporting One Another with Pro Bono

November 30, 2016

balancingrocks

I must admit the political chaos of recent weeks has me daydreaming for the serenity we enjoyed on our Octoberfest Brewery Tour. We did a lot of slow-paced beach time, both on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, and there’s nothing more calming than the ebb and flow of waves washing over the sand.

We came upon this idyllic scene while hiking the Sleeping Bear Dunes, near Traverse City, Michigan. Such a simple formation, isn’t it? A few stones balancing one upon the other. While the rest of the world was arguing over who belongs where and whose individual rights are more important, these four stones quietly supported one another amid a strong lakefront breeze.

Support Enables Balance

Author Thomas Merton said “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” This thought can also be applied to success, whether it’s success of a business or a non-profit organization. For that, we need to work together. We need to support one another.

In thankfulness for all my clients do for me, November is the month I pass it forward. Each year Adunate accepts two pro bono projects for greatly reduced or no cost. These are projects I strongly support and believe will positively impact God’s creation, his people, or his ministry.

My interests include, but aren’t limited to:

Agriculture & Animals
Architecture
Arts
Children
Environment
Faith
History
Humanity
Food & Drink
Sustainability

If your organization needs creative support in the coming year, click here for an application. Then, to guarantee your project’s success, be sure to click here!

My deadline for submissions is December 31, 2016. I will let applicants know of my decision in January.

November Means Working Together (Pro-Bono)

November 19, 2015

Here it is November and we still have sandhill cranes. If you look closely in this zoomed-to-the-max iPhone shot, you see two of them enhancing the otherwise desolate cornfield. They caught my attention a few mornings ago as they gaggled away in response to another pair far in the distance. This weekend we’re supposed to get several inches of snow so these snowbirds will likely say to heck with this and take off for warmer temps.

Aren’t the migratory habits of birds amazing?

For example, for several months in autumn the sandhills gather in wetlands before heading south. These are called staging areas and here in Wisconsin there are several where thousands of cranes assemble at a time. I like to imagine this is a time of preparation and joining together of forces for the arduous journey ahead.

You probably knew migrating birds fly in the V-Formation, officially known as the echelon formation. They do this for its aerodynamic advantage, obviously. But did you know birds take turns flying the front helm of this V, a very strenuous task? And did you know the mortality rate for birds is six times higher during the migration season? Given this, isn’t it interesting that even though survival favors the selfish—those that promote their own well-being before that of others—the God-given nature of birds is to selflessly share the responsibility?

This author makes a good point when he says, “If migrating birds work together, the flock has a greater chance of having all of its feathered brethren make the long trip to their destination.”

Working together. For the good of all.

With this caring concept in mind and because November is the month of giving, let me announce it’s my season for pro-bono applications. Each year Adunate accepts two pro-bono projects for greatly reduced or no cost. These are projects I strongly support and believe will positively impact God’s creation, his people, or his ministry.

My interests include, but aren’t limited to:

Architecture
Arts
Children
Faith
History
Humanity
Natural Food & Living
Nature & Animals
Preservation & Sustainability

If your organization needs creative assistance in the upcoming year, click here for an application. Then, to guarantee your project’s success, be sure to click here!

Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2015. I will let applicants know of my decision in January.

Fiesta Risen Savior

April 14, 2015

Each year Adunate does pro-bono work for projects especially meaningful to my heart. Recently, I was honored to do promotional pieces for Fiesta Risen Savior, a fundraising celebration of the Hispanic Ministry by Risen Savior Lutheran Church in Milwaukee. What a fun project for such a meaningful event!

First, let me share a bit about the ministry.

According to this Journal Sentinel article, Risen Savior Lutheran Church and School is a spiritual haven for northwest Milwaukee’s growing Hispanic population. The church has services in both English and Spanish, and its school enrolls 250 students, with 45 percent being African American, 45 percent Hispanic, and the rest Nigerian, Caucasian, Asian and others.

When I met with Risen Savior’s committee, I assumed their Hispanic Ministry was attended specifically by Mexicans (as is ours at St. Mark’s Lutheran in the much smaller community of Watertown). Pastor Luis Acosta quickly pointed out they are currently represented by a wonderfully diverse group of nationalities, including Mexican, Puerto Rican, Columbian and Venezuelan.

As the Bible says, “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

Don’t you just love this artwork? Risen Savior School displays pieces done by the students throughout the school…

…as well as work done by other artists…

…depicting diverse peoples, inspiration…

…and God’s saving grace.

My friend Anna serves as assistant principal for Risen Savior School. I’m super proud of the work she and her coworkers do for this special ministry. Risen Savior is blessed through them.

So what about the fiesta?

Now in its eighth year, Fiesta Risen Savior is the congregation’s annual fundraising event for its Hispanic Ministry. Delicious food. Great entertainment. This year members will provide a vibrant celebration of their many heritages.

Interested in offering support? To learn more about the event and ministry, click here.

Does your organization need help visually communicating its message? Beginning in October, Adunate will accept applications for its 2016 pro-bono season. In the meantime, check out the application form here. And then, to guarantee success for your pro-bono project, be sure to click here.

Labors of Love Preserve Historic Cemetery

February 28, 2015

Wine Tasting promotional

When it comes to doing business with family, the rule of thumb is don’t. But here is a design and copywriting project for which I was not only happy to throw rules to the wind, I was downright proud doing so. Along with this comes a story, so sit yourselves down and pour up a glass of wine.

Back in the early 1970s, my mother-in-law telephoned her township chairman about the poor state of affairs at the Watertown Township Union Cemetery. Her concern was for an overgrown acre of land a mile up the road from their farm. With gravestones dating back to the mid-1800s, it was a historical memorial of the surrounding community.

As a result of that phone call, my father-in-law became the cemetery’s official curator. He passed along an ever-so-slight compensation to his 15-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son (my husband) for diligently pushing their lawnmowers up to the cemetery, mowing, trimming, and then pushing them back home again.

Little did my in-laws know this would become a perpetual labor of love. In fact, here it is forty years later and they still manage the cemetery. Together with their children and grandchildren, they mow, maintain, arrange burials, do the occasional fill-in-the-grave-by-hand and host an annual Friends of Union Cemetery meeting. They do all this with great care and dedication.

Each year my now 82-year-old father-in-law talks of turning the position over to his children. We’ll happily oblige. But when asked if he’s really ready to retire, he always decides to keep at it another year. There’s some hardy Wisconsin farm blood for ya.

That’s the personal side of this story.

Here’s the civic side: Throughout the U.S., rural cemeteries are falling by the wayside. They’re abandoned, vandalized and forgotten. Most no longer have formal organizations that share an interest in their care. Those that do are non-profits limping along with treasuries barely covering the gas to mow.

The Friends of Union Cemetery don’t want this to happen. Nope, not to our little sanctuary up on the hill. Thankfully we have pro-active energy and connoisseurs of wine within our midst!

Are you in the Watertown area? Stop by on March 8 for some flavorful wine and hors d’oeuvres!

Superstorm Sandy and the Importance of Giving

November 2, 2012

My husband and I were in Philadelphia over the weekend just before the surge of Hurricane Sandy. To say it was interesting is an understatement. In mayhem-filled grocery stores, checkout lines ran the length of every aisle. In neighborhood coffee shops, people contemplated the water resiliency of their apartments and whether their subway stops would stay open.

Meanwhile, my husband and I hunkered down at the historic Conwell Inn, located at Temple University (I just love that inn). At midnight of the night before the storm, we walked around campus and there was a fascinating calm/eerie/excitement in the air (the students were ecstatic because classes had already been cancelled:-). We debated whether to stay our full reservation, but in the end left the next day before things became too chaotic.

That’s the extent of our hurricane adventure—obviously nothing too dramatic. It did give us cause for reflection though.

Whenever my husband and I visit large urban areas, we’re reminded how naive we are of life outside our rural Midwestern simplicity. Most big city folks don’t drive (many, like our son, don’t even own a car). They live in smaller spaces that don’t allow for much food storage. And there are people everywhere. When something catastrophic like a superstorm hits, the problems they face are much different than our own.

Hurricane Sandy reminds us of the importance of giving. Isn’t it awesome how Americans come together and help each other?

With that in mind, I want to put out word to those needing help with their visual communications. Each year Adunate does two pro-bono projects—one large and one small. If your organization needs creative assistance in 2013, click here for an application. And then, click here to guarantee your project’s success!