e c i o V r You Staff Newsletter April 2018
Core Value of the Month: Excellence We invest in continuous learning and personal development. We exceed expectations in our service to others. We do our best. We do it right. We do it now.
Our mission ...helping donors achieve their charitable goals for the greater benefit of the community
A note from Becca
News: Becca was recently inducted into the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame. She and her mother, Jill Parker, are the first mother, daughter duo to be inducted. Next up, Becca’s daughter, Rory!
Welcome to Your Voice, our new monthly employee newsletter written for you and by you. Each month, one of our Area Foundation values will be featured as the focal point of the publication. Stories and information will be based on that value. In addition, colleagues will share their joys and successes, both professionally and personally. For example, in this edition, Bernice and Isabel talk about their latest travel adventures, and Deb and Jose show us how to take a mental health break during the day. This month, the focus is on excellence. We act upon that value by investing in continuous learning and personal development, exceeding expectations in our service to others; and doing our best, doing it right and doing it now. This publication provides you with a few examples of how we are exhibiting this value not only in the workplace but in our lives outside of the Foundation. I hope you enjoy this edition, and please know that your contributions and feedback are greatly appreciated. If you have contributions for future editions, please see Lorna. If you’d like to give general feedback about the publication, see Lorna or myself. Enjoy.
Drum CafĂŠ
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Investing in continuous learning and personal development is a key action item aligned with our value of Excellence.
Learning to the Beat Collaborating, understanding, listening and appreciating what we each bring to the table were a few of the lessons shared during Drum Café’s motivational visit on March 19. Area Foundation staff were greeted by the sound of African djembe drums as they walked into the room. The following hour and a half consisted of staff members matching every beat of the professional drummer and blending drum harmonies to make an impressive Area Foundation sound. Becca wowed the team with her fancy footwork after drum professional Dale Monnin called her to the stage for an exercise in leadership. Investing in continuous learning and personal development is a key action item aligned with our value of Excellence. Drum Café was founded in 1996 in Johannesburg, South Africa, to unify a diverse and divided people in the post-Apartheid era. The purpose of Drum Café is to teach individuals that their role is part of a greater entity and that we all succeed or fail together.
e v o M e h t n O
Exploring Europe By Bernice Uresti, Program Officer, Scholarships
Where did you go?
In March, my husband, daughter-in-law’s parents and me landed in Frankfurt, Germany, and made our way to Stuttgart, Germany. We went to see the Rhine Falls in Switzerland, which are the largest waterfalls in the country. We then made our way to Paris, where we saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Louvre. In Germany we went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum, took a tour of the city, and visited the Ritter Chocolate Museum. We also ate way too much and got to taste the local beer.
How long where you there? We were there about 8 days.
Why did you choose Germany as your vacation spot? We went to Germany because my son is a captain in the Air Force and is stationed there with his wife, Rosanne. They live in Stuttgart because that is where the base is located.
Two fun things you did while there?
My two favorite things were visiting the Lourvre in Paris and touring an American battle monument in Belleau Wood, France. This monument is a memorial to the U.S. Marines who fought and died alongside the French during WWI and were instrumental in capturing the area from the Germans. The memorial lists the names of all the men missing in action. There is a cemetery with the names of those missing.
Do you have a funny story from the trip that you’d like to share? Our flight out of Houston was delayed, so we ended up on a different flight to Germany. Because of this our luggage did not get to us for two days! The other funny thing is that everything is so much smaller: roads, cars, rooms -- and showers.
Would you recommend your colleagues consider it for their next vacation? Yes, it was a wonderful trip. I was really surprised at the number of people who speak English. LOTS! On our tour of Stuttgart, we visited the building where council meetings are held and there was an elevator that was continuous. Never stops. You jump on and you jump off - definitely, not ADA accessible.
Our colleagues are living a life of excellence through relaxation, travel, exercise and more. Do you have a special moment, event, vacation, meditation routine, or something you’d like to share? Email Lorna at lstafford@saafdn.org
Can’t go away on vacation, Debbie and Jose have a fun way you can take a mental break right here at the Pearl. In March, the two took a lunchtime break to bike around the area.
Bike Riding at Pearl By Jose Garcia, Treasury Manager and Debbie Vasquez, Facilities Coordinator
West Texas Adventures By Isabel Myjer, Program Assistant In March, I took a road trip with two friends through West Texas. We spent the first three days hiking around Big Bend National Park. The landscape was breathtakingly beautiful and unlike anything I’d ever seen. We also visited the natural hot springs in the Rio Grande. In the evenings we explored Alpine, a cute railroad town with fun galleries and shops. After Big Bend, we drove to Marfa, Texas. Marfa is a tiny desert town with a population under 2,000. It has become a destination for minimalist art and a haven for people seeking to live off the grid. We ate at trendy restaurants inside refurbished art deco buildings, admired sleek art installations, chatted with friendly locals and watched the sun set over the desert. I would definitely recommend this trip to others. The nature is beautiful, and Marfa is a place like no other. If you decide to visit Marfa, make sure to bring snacks. There are only a few places to eat and they open and close when they want. I would also recommend taking the drive to Prada Marfa. It’s a fake Prada store in the middle of nowhere and a fun place to take photos.
What sparked your decision to ride bikes at lunch? Debbie sparked the initial idea for her love of bike riding. Pearl has a bike station and the opportunity presented itself with a mini adventure. We both decided to go during lunch to do something engaging outside the office. Where did you ride; how was the ride? We rode our bikes along the river bed getting close to downtown before we turned around. It was extremely pleasant as we enjoyed interacting with tourists on the trail. We also developed a stronger colleague bond and look forward to working with one another. Would you recommend other staff try it? YES! We would definitely recommend this to staff. Along with benefits of health, we gained a fresh perspective on our work (art) and the mind liberation we received was fully worth it. How do you define your lunchtime outing in terms of our value of excellence? WE believe this pertains to our core value of excellence because we were fully interactive with each other in our activity and we experienced coming back to work with a different scope of lens ready to tackle all our duties that we fulfill to help the community! We would like to note that this was a one-hour activity. We saw an opportunity to challenge ourselves in a time frame that wasn’t ideal. We made the best of it and succeeded.
s w e N e c i f f O
Staff Online Training
By Sandie Palomo-Gonzales, PhD, Director of Capacity Building
“We invest in continuous learning and personal development.” This is one of three statements defining -- one of our core values -- excellence. In alignment with this core value, we are proud to announce the launch of BizLibrary, an e-learning system of training videos and online resources. Eight video sessions have been selected on topics ranging from effective time management to active listening and healthy communication. Hillary Stone at SWBC sent everyone login information as well due dates for training completion. The videos run from 4 to 16 minutes in length, and earbuds have been purchased so you can watch at your own pace and in your workspace. The online learning system is part of the Area Foundation’s investment in staff professional development to strengthen our organizational culture and increase employee engagement.
Leadership Competency Model By Arenda Burns VP of Human Resources & Organizational Development
Every employee wants to know how he or she is doing on the job. That’s because every employee wants to succeed. To do that, an organization has to put expectations and competencies in place so employees can align their performance to something. Becca identified a gap in this at the Area Foundation. We had very robust job descriptions, but we did not have any type of competency or alignment in place. Now we have created a leadership model (performance management) that will align all employees – staff, managers, directors, VPs and C-Suite – to competencies attached to individual job descriptions. Leadership competencies include attributes like respecting and valuing others; stakeholder focus; valuing diversity, inclusion and equity; aligning to organizational values; collaboration; effectively communicating; self-knowledge and resiliency. The Organizational Development team understands that everyone is at a different level or skill set, so we are giving you tools and resources to help. Training may include books, the Biz Library, or live classes with experts. But key in making this work is for staff to take ownership of the model, not only for training but to make sure their managers, in a very respectful way, are evaluating them based on their alignment to the competencies. There is a clear difference between performance management and performance excellence. Performance excellence is based on defined metrics and goals aligned to organizational performance. Performance management is aligned to the employee’s performance. Our performance management roll out began recently. Training has been aligned to all staff competencies in the online training portal, our directors recently took the Crucial Conversations training, and all staff just completed the Change Management session. Later, Jan Johnson will give staff an overview of our future leadership plans. Bottom line is that we should have some kind of synergy in what we do even if our work is different. This tried and true competency model will help us achieve that.
Balanced Scorecard By Rebecca Helterbrand, VP, Strategy & Innovation
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alanced Scorecard - sounds like some new yoga pose, right? The balanced scorecard (BSC) isn’t a “thing”; it’s a flexible and adaptable management framework.
• Customer/Stakeholder: this perspective views organizational performance from the point of view the customer or other key stakeholders that the organization is designed to serve
The BSC was developed in the late 1980’s by Drs. Robert Kaplan, a consultant, and David Norton, Harvard Business School professor. And the balanced scorecard is mighty popular, winning all the things, like 5th place on the Top 10 Most Widely Used Management Tools (Bain & Co. Global Study), and being named “one of the most influential business ideas of the past 75 years” by the editors of Harvard Business Review. Gartner Group estimates that over 50 percent of large US firms have adopted the BSC framework.
• Internal Process: views organizational performance through the lenses of the quality and efficiency related to our product or services or other key business processes
So now that we know the BSC is tried and true, what does it do? It communicates our goals, aligning work to strategy, and helps to prioritize, measure and monitor progress. The BSC is organized into four quadrants, with each quadrant having a strategy, measures (often called key performance indicators), targets, and initiatives (actions) relative to each of the areas. The quadrants are: • Financial: this perspective views organizational financial performance and the use of financial resources
• Organizational Capacity: views organizational performance through the lenses of human capital (our people), infrastructure, technology, culture, and other capacities that are key to breakthrough performance As we embark on a journey of developing excellence and stewarding a BSC, we’ll host learning sessions and determine the metrics together. The goal is to have the BSC up and running in a few short months so that we begin utilizing it as our way of doing business in 2018. We are asking our nonprofit partners to develop metrics and outcomes that demonstrate impact, and we’ll lead the way with our own evolution to a management framework that the BSC provides. To create and sustain a culture of high performance, leaders go first – you are not only a leader in the San Antonio Area Foundation, you are a leader within the community!
r u o g n i v li s e u l a v
Community
Integrity
Passion
Excellence
Do you know a staff member that has exemplified our core values this month? Emil your LOV note to lstafford@saafdn.org
LOV Notes Lisa very generously shared her expertise with the nonprofit community recently when she taught a fundraising session at our “member-only” Lunch ‘n’ Learn. Fourteen members were in attendance. We even received an email from a participant who had this to say after the session: “I just wanted to let you know that the Lunch and Learn was EXCELLENT today. As fundraisers, most of us know the basics but it is always so refreshing when you go to a class and they reaffirm the way that you are doing things. I believe that we can never stop improving and so it was also really great to get some extra pointers.”
Shout out to Arizbeth for teaching me photography tips and tricks this month. Thank you! - Isabel
Gary - Excellence for managing the technology for an smooth office move within his first two months at the Area Foundation. Thanks.
Shout out to Jose Garcia.Jose has played an integral part in transitioning my grant process to a paperless version. Although his primary role is in Treasury, he graciously took on responsibilities of another role within the foundation to assist in accommodating my vision. Jose studied, observed, and absorbed all things PaperSave to ensure a smooth and efficient transition to a paperless process and without him, this small niche of the Area Foundation would not have become as modernized as it is now. He has taken the initiative to do what others have not had the capacity to do in the past in a very short time, all while staying true to his own daily functions and duties as a manager. I envy Jose’s inquisitiveness, enthusiasm, and character and wish the world had many more people like him. The Area Foundation is lucky to have Jose as staff. He puts the Foundation before all else to ensure we have a fun yet functional environment. Without him my vision of a paperless process would not have become a reality this quickly, and I am grateful to have him as a colleague. Thank you, Jose!
- Heather
- Jennifer
- Sandie & Kathy Thank you, Gary for all the hard work, diligence and dedication to the “move” and set up of all the new furniture for our offices. What an awesome job, especially for having just joining our organization! Great job Gary! Thank you from ALL of us! - Patty
Staff Birthdays:
Staff Anniversaries:
Bernice Uresti, March 1
Lorna Stafford, 1 year
Isabel Myjer, March 9
Bernice Uresti, 17 years
April Hansard, March 15
Heather Diehl, 7 years
Mary Ann Sammuelson, April 9
Jenna Gonzales, 3 years
Lydia Saldana, April 12
Cadence Corbin, 3 years
Leticia Segovia, April 13
Lolita Hartmann, 8 years
Victoria Salgado de Diggs, April 14
Sandie Palomo-Gomzalez, 11 years Jeanette Medina, 3 years
Complete for a Chance to Win $25 (one entry per employee; entry due by May 1, 2018 to Lorna Stafford; random drawing determines winner) Name: _________________________ Where is the fake Prada store located? _________________________ Name one of the four quadrants of the Balanced Scorecard: __________________________ How many videos were selected to be a part of our online training? _______________________ When Debbie & Jose rented bikes, how long was their bike ride? __________________________