On Our Sixth Anniversary, Celebrating Our Team and Six Organizations We Value

How better to wrap up our #WeveGotYourSix sixth anniversary celebration than to share the insight, perspective and compassion of the RENEW PR Team? I’m fortunate to work with a group of communications professionals who aren’t just smart: they are also good people I am proud to call colleagues and friends.

I picked #WeveGotYourSix as our anniversary theme to highlight the role our Team plays in our success. And I’m so glad I did: by nominating groups working on energy, environment and LGBTQ issues to receive sixth anniversary donations from RENEWPR, the Team also highlighted our expertise on these issues and underscored our commitment to supporting good people doing good things.

As I wrote in one of my first blog posts in 2015 (Our Values), “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” Here is what we stand for:

1) Jayne Brady nominated the Center for Diversity and the Environment for two reasons: “CDE’s unique focus on leadership development from within institutions catalyzes change to realize and advance their mission of a “diverse, inclusive, successful, vibrant and relevant" environmental movement. CDE offers an impressive range of programs that provide guidance and training for individuals and organizations. They stress building alliances and community work.”

2) Annette Larkin nominated Let's Fund: Clean Energy Innovation R&D with this explanation: "I support Let's Fund's global perspective and their mission to encourage developed countries/advanced economies to coordinate spending parts of their GDP on clean energy R&D."

3) Lowen Baumgarten nominated The Trust for Public Land "because protecting wild lands, creating parks and expanding schoolyards ensures healthy and livable communities for generations to come. Everyone should be able to enjoy the beauty of America and we need organizations like TPL to protect it."

4) Steve Kauffman nominated PFLAG by sharing this story: "I first learned of PFLAG when a chapter formed in my small city in Texas in the 1990s, and I was approached about writing their newsletter. The chapter, based in a local church, was comprised equally of friends and family as it was gay men and women in this quite repressed community. The love and acceptance of the group helped me come out and showed me that there was an outlet of love and acceptance for me and others. The work of this group and its local chapters has helped many families stay together and likely helped save countless lives around the U.S."

5) Darren Goode nominated GRID Alternatives because "An important climate change challenge moving forward is ensuring more clean energy equity in our communities. Oakland-based GRID Alternatives has been a leading voice for expanding low-income solar policies and access where I am in the Bay area and elsewhere, including in helping provide free home batteries to fellow Californians who have been increasingly vulnerable to power outages.”

6) I nominated NLGJA: The Association for LGBTQ Journalists because "supporting LGBTQ journalists and journalism is more important than ever to ensuring that our stories are told and our lives are recognized as part of the fabric of America."

RENEW PR made donations to each of these organizations this month based on the nominations of our team members. Thanks to you all, and to the groups we highlighted, for your great work!

As I reflect on the past six years, I’m thankful for many things:

for our clients, who give us the ability to contribute to their success and the opportunity to build expertise and gain additional experience
for our colleagues, who refer business to us and help us make connections and contacts that boost everyone’s ability to contribute
for our Partners, who give us the ability to do more for more people and create an expanded network that increases our reach
for our Team members who collaborate to do the work that drives our growth

Time has flown by, but we’re just getting started. I look forward to the next six years and the next six after that (and more!) as we continue building a firm and a community of people committed to restoring common sense to communications with us.