nonprofits Archives - Change Communications

3 Reasons To Attend Pacific Community Ventures’ Luncheon April 14

Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) is hosting their annual luncheon on Thursday, April 14, 2016 at 11:30am at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. We’re excited to support PCV and their amazing mission to invest in entrepreneurs and small businesses in underserved communities. Beyond the great work that PCV does, including providing mentorship and small business loans to create jobs in local communities, here are three other reasons that you should join us at Hotel Nikko on April 14.

Network With Inspiring Leaders

Networking at PCV's 2015 luncheon; photo from PCV's Facebook page — Networking at PCV’s 2015 luncheon; photo from PCV’s Facebook page

You don’t want to miss the opportunity to network with impact investors, professionals in economic development and some of the Bay Area’s best and brightest small business owners.

Have Your Mind Blown

At the luncheon, a panel discussion moderated by Professor Kellie McElhaney of Haas School of Business will focus on identifying what quality jobs are and how concerned business leaders can create more of them. Esteemed panel members include:

Fred Blackwell, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation
Jose Corona, Director of Equity & Strategic Partnerships, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf
Krystell Guzman, Owner, La Plazita Preschool
Johnny Travis, Owner, FAZE Apparel

Learn More About PCV’s Mission

PCV’s sole vision is to assist underserved communities by engaging impact investors, policymakers and local small businesses in order to strengthen local economies and create much-needed quality employment. The San Francisco-based nonprofit provides mentoring and working capital to new businesses in these communities, as well as access to a healthy network of banking, business and investment professionals. To date, Pacific Community Ventures has helped to create an impressive 14,850 new quality jobs and has provided assistance to an additional 1,097 companies since the recession’s end in 2009.

Led by President and CEO, Mary Jo Cook, Pacific Community Venture partners include notable business and economic leaders such as Kiva Zip, PG&E, Silicon Valley Bank, the World Economic Forum, Nerdwallet, The California Endowment, Charles Schwab and more. To help impact investors and policymakers measure outcomes and increase the impact of their investments in the community, PVC further provides each one with customized research and key advisory services.

Annual Luncheon Tickets and Information

The opportunity to network with noted economic development professionals, impact investors and the Bay Area’s most distinguished small business owners doesn’t come along every day. In fact, this is Pacific Community Ventures’ only fundraiser of the year! So, mark your calendars for Thursday, April 14th at 11:30 am and plan to be at Hotel Nikko located at 222 Mason Street in San Francisco. Tickets are $150 each and we’re hoping for a sold-out event, so reserve your place at the table by visiting Eventbrite right now!

For more information or media passes, contact our own Katy Lim at [email protected] or by phone at (415) 375-0663.

By Laura S.

Are You A NonProfit That Needs PR Help?

As individuals, we at Change Communications have long been passionate about causes and organizations that improve communities and advance civil rights. After all, we named ourselves after an oft-used Gandhi quote (sorry to be so clichèd but it’s a darn good quote!). In our years working with nonprofit and community-based organizations, we have noticed a tremendous void in their PR and communications efforts. Namely, that many organizations simply couldn’t afford this extremely important aspect of their operations. With tighter budgets and federal funding going by the wayside, many nonprofits cannot sustain their organizations without PR/communications, but most of them can’t afford it or don’t have the energy/resources to dedicate towards it.

When we started Change Communications, our intention was to dedicate a significant amount of time doing pro bono work to help nonprofit organizations that we are passionate about. We haven’t been able to dedicate as much time as we initially wanted, or thought we would, due to the reality of running our little PR firm but we have spent some time working with a few great community-based nonprofits that our friends have steered us toward. Now it’s time to open our services to others looking for this kind of help.

If you’re a U.S.-based not-for-profit (with 501(c)(3) status) that serves the community for progressive causes, we want to help you. We don’t work on political campaigns and we are nonpartisan. We also want to stay focused on domestic organizations because, quite frankly, the international market is a difficult one to tackle, and we want to leverage our strengths.

If you’re an organization that actively fights to suppress people’s rights, e.g. if you’re against gay marriage, want to limit a woman’s right to choose, or think that it’s totally cool for oil companies to destroy the environment, then we have NO interest in helping you. In fact, we will actively work against you.

So if you fall into the category of being a domestic nonprofit and you are in need of PR/communications support, just send over an introductory email that has the following details (and please make sure that all of the below is included):

-Short, 1-2 sentence explanation of your nonprofit organization

-Link to website and to social media platforms

-Your basic PR/communications needs

-Your business and marketing goals

-Will you have a dedicated point of contact who will serve as the PR liaison?

You can send this email to katy(at)bethechangepr.com with “Nonprofit needs help” in the subject line, or hit us up on Facebook and Twitter. We won’t be able to assist every organization that contacts us but we’ll hopefully be able to steer you in the right direction.

We are looking forward to changing your communications, and hopefully, helping you change the world.

Calling All Youth Focused Non-Profits To Enter In The Give For Youth Challenge!

Organizations that prepare young men and women for the future with interview workshops, SAT practice tests, mentorship, entrepreneurship programs, and college prep courses are doing their part to make the world a little better by nurturing better people, but it’s not easy (or cheap). These nonprofits that help America’s young have an uphill battle raising funds and awareness. Where do they go when they need both? Enter Microsoft and GOOD.

Microsoft and GOOD are calling all U.S.-based 501(c)(3) non-profits to enter the Give For Youth Challenge. If you know an inspiring non-profit with micro projects that empowers young people to realize their potential, you can nominate them from January 7th to February 1st(noon PST) or encourage them to submit themselves directly.

After the nomination period, 20 non-profits will be chosen by community votes to move onto the voting round. These 20 will have the opportunity to participate on the Give For Youth micro-giving portal, where they can raise funds and matching grants from Microsoft, up to $100,000 across all non-profits.

Change Communications is excited to be working with GOOD and hoping to see some amazing entries on the Give For Youth site. Additional information about the challenge can be found here: http://www.good.is/posts/good-maker-challenge-support-the-dreams-of-young-people-with-crowd-funding-opportunities