#interview: Miriam Avins, Founder Of The Baltimore Green Space
Greening Baltimore,one lot at a time
This is a repost of an article that original appeared on the MKCREATIVE Nonprofit Marketing Blog in December, 2010.
Shortly after Miriam Avins and her family moved to Baltimore in 2003, she and her neighbors started a community garden after a dilapidated house next door to them was taken down. A few years later when someone wanted to put up seven condos with underground parking, she became concerned about the fate of many community gardens in the city.
“What struck me was the way people could put in this type of work for many years – much more time than we had done – and still have no more security in terms of the land remaining available for the community. Gardens bring beauty, food, and often even lower crime. Yet a garden can disappear in an instant.”
Popularity: 6% | Category Community, Community Gardens, Environment, Greening, Interview, iPhone Apps, Nonprofit, Perspectives, Technology, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Cate Neilson
#Interview: Steve Frillmann, Executive Director, Green Guerillas
A community garden created by local residents with the help and support of Green Guerillas
This is a repost of an article that originally appeared on the MKCREATIVE blog in March, 2010.
Each month we look at a marketing challenge faced by many of our clients. This month the issue is when, or if, to switch from print to web-based and social media, and we chose to present it through the eyes of one of our clients. We recently spoke with Steve Frillmann, executive director of Green Guerillas, a nonprofit organization that supports hundreds of community gardens (and gardeners) in New York City.
We’ve been working with the Green Guerillas for nearly 15 years, a relationship that began when Marco Kathuria (MKCREATIVE’s Creative Director & Social Media Strategist) volunteered as photographer/videographer for a project working with children to create colorful murals within community gardens in New York City. Out of that relationship came a realization of a “shared DNA” – a commitment to enrich the lives of city residents, one neighborhood at time. The collaboration with the Green Guerillas evolved into the creation of the organization’s graphic identity and communications toolkit. The marketing mix and the strategic direction it has taken has evolved over the years as a result of the close collaboration between MKCREATIVE and Steve Frillmann.
We began our conversation by asking Steve to give us his perspective on how he sees the Social Media:Direct Mail mix for his own organization, considering that converting one’s communications from print to social media channels is all the rage in business and nonprofit circles. But how useful is a great website if the bulk of your constituents visit the Web infrequently, or never? (more…)
Popularity: 25% | Category Advice, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, E-Mail, eNewsletter, Environment, Greening, How-to, Interview, Marketing, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Perspectives, Perspectives, Revitalization, Social Media, Sustainability, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Enviro: Time To Plan Your Proposal For The 2012 Baltimore Green Week!
The fine folks at Baltimore Green Works have been putting on Baltimore Green Week for the past eight years, and they are calling for submissions for those individuals and organizations ready to make the ninth one the best yet.
The form required to propose your project, product, booth, or happening is available online, and is due on December 14th. The winning proposals will be announced in mid-January. GreenWeek 2012 will be April 21-28 at Druid Hill Park in northwest Baltimore. Green Week is part of BGW’s ongoing EcoFest.
If you are in need of some guidance, inspiration, or feedback, BGW is sponsoring a Q&A Meeting for 27 September at 6:pm at 2002 Clipper Park Road, 4th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21211. The meeting is open to anyone even considering submitting a proposal, though GBW asks for an RSVP either to bgw@baltimoregreenworks.com or with a call to 410-952-0334.
But if you are not part of a greening organization or company, you can still take part as volunteers for any of the seven days are always wanted.
Check out BGW’s site if you are unfamiliar with it, and mark your calendars for these upcoming events. Finally, to give yourself the good and tasty nourishment needed for this level of community action, look for your local (MD) farmer’s market and support local farmers for the rest of the summer and fall.
Popularity: 4% | Category Advocacy, Communications, Community, Diet, eNewsletter, Environment, Events, Greening, Health, Local/Maryland, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
Enviro: 8th-Annual Baltimore Green Week Starts Tomorrow!
Download Emilio Martinez's poster here
It started with a handful of volunteers hoping to draw attention to some of the environmental efforts in and around Baltimore city. It grew in scope to include the business and nonprofit sectors, as well as scores of neighborhood-based organizations. And now Baltimore Green Works is poised to give us the biggest, funnest, most colorful, and most informative Green Week ever. It kicks of tomorrow with “Plant A Vertical Garden” at 2:pm at the Kennedy-Krieger Institute’s Greenspring campus: “Join Baltimore Contained as we plant organic vegetables started from seed by the horticulture students at Kennedy Krieger High School. Using Woolly Pockets planters, you can grow vegetables on any supporting structure, including a chain link fence!” Read on to see the other green goodness coming our way.
Popularity: 3% | Category Community, Environment, Event, Events, Greening, Urban Farming | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner
Maryland Schools Strive To Green Their Lunches
Last week on the blog “Audacious Ideas” (sponsored by the Soros-funded Open Society Institute of Baltimore that the MKCREATIVE blog featured earlier this month) Jill Wrigley wrote about establishing “a garden in every school.” Her ambition is to establish gardens that become fields of learning such cognitive skills as science (chemistry, biology), math (areas, fractions, scales of measurement), art (design, colors), and of course, nutrition.
Popularity: 1% | Category Community, Greening, Local/Maryland, News and Current Affairs, Urban Farming | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner
#Fundraising: Crowdsourcing Platforms Designed For The Mission-Based Community (Part I)
“Crowdsourcing” is the buzzword of the moment (though coined in the ancient world of technology back in 2006) and pertains to making an open appeal or project to a community and having those connected to that community take on the appeal or project and running it amongst themselves. It assumes the existence of a community in close communication (think Twitter, simple messaging services, Google Talk!, etc.), who is also ready to share information among their own micro-communities or constituencies. The challenge is to build one’s community and keep it engaged and ready to receive your organization’s various appeals and requests. Meeting that challenge is what a number of online services and platforms have established themselves to do. We shall review a few of them today.
Popularity: 1% | Category Banking & Finance, Community, Grants and Funding, Marketing, Nonprofit, Software Review, Sustainability, Urban Farming, Web and Print | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner
Saving Money, Reducing CO2, and Getting Profitable IS That Easy
Shut down your machine!
The Ford Motor Company did not require the same sorts of bailouts that the General Motors conglomerate did last year. Its family-run structure likely kept its owners, managers, and designers on their toes because they had their own ‘skins-in-the-game.’ Now TreeHugger.com posts a story about how the company went ahead and saved another cool $1.2 million by, uh, turning off the computers at its headquarters at night and on weekends. The decision is rewarded thusly, according to TreeHugger: “By centrally controlling the power settings on the company’s computers, they are saving an estimated $1.2 million annually and keeping between 16,000 and 25,000 metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere.”
Popularity: 1% | Category Automobiles, Climate Change, Community, Conference/Congress, Greening, News and Current Affairs, Site Administration, Sustainability, Technology, Urban Farming | | Comments Off
Written by: Christopher Gardner
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