CHRISTINA MORILLO
SPONSORED CONTENT
Community Board Involvement During the Year of COVID BY JACK YAKOWICZ
Aren’t you sick of hearing about the pandemic by now? Don’t mind me, writing another article with “COVID” in the title. Coming up on month fourteen of our lives being altered by this disease, I find myself at stage seven of the grieving process: hope. That hope, in a large part, stems from seeing what still has been able to be accomplished in a year that none of us could have aptly planned for. More specifically, serving on the board for the American Advertising Federation of North Dakota (a group exclusively composed of volunteers) has instilled this hope. Seeing the efforts of our board, our members, and our community to rally and keep things going has made me not only grateful for the past year, but optimistic about what comes next. Our story is far from unique. North Dakota is home to over 5,300 non-profit organizations, many of whom are operating with minimal staff and require maximum support from volunteers and community members. Everybody’s been impacted by the pandemic in different ways, but being a board member for AAF-ND has granted me a special lens into the challenges that non-profit organizations, in particular, have faced. Today, I wanted to lift the curtain and give you all a little glimpse into the past several months for our organization to show how our community board has adapted and grown stronger during a time of crisis. 26
MAY 2021
About Our Organization AAF-ND is North Dakota’s branch of the American Advertising Federation, a national outfit focused on promoting and protecting the well being of advertising. Our specific ad club has no paid staff members. We’re a collective of marketers and advertising enthusiasts from around the community that band together to put on unique events (including the American Advertising Awards and our speaker series). We also host networking opportunities, have a public service arm committed to giving back to the community, and connect with the schools through our education efforts.
March 2020 - COVID Hits
Like many others, we had no idea the extent of COVID. We canceled our March speaker event and waited to learn more. Our monthly board meetings moved to Zoom, and we stayed connected with updates over our Slack channel. There was a general feeling of what’s next? Many of us transitioned into working remotely for our jobs, and adjusted to doing our board work remotely as well. We figured we may be back to in-person events by April, and also began some early prep efforts for the 2020-21 season that would start in the fall.
