Sorry everyone for the delay in posting this. It turns out, we did announce the winner of the outreach on Friday June 8th as planned, we just we never got around to notifying everyone that didn’t win until today.
Before I announce the winner, I just want to recap a little about from the outreach itself.. The entire project was a smashing success. Given the little promotion we had, we still managed to hear from a total of 14 non-profit organizations, of which 6 completed the process of submitting their consideration package to fully qualify.
After evaluating both the physical and digital packages sent to us, we narrowed the list to the three organizations who all shared the following criteria:
- Is an active, growing organization with at least some paid staff.
- Expressed an interest in learning about the web and a willingness to get as involved as necessary to make sure this project is a success.
- Sent at least one follow up to check on the status of their entry.
The items above were all very important factors to us. While we didn’t announce them publicly before now (we didn’t want to influence the submissions), we wanted to make sure that the recipient understands that harnessing the power of the web is not something that can be strictly outsourced to someone else.
In order to do it right, someone from the organization needs to take ownership as we hand things off and handle the day to day interactions that are essential to success. By evaluating with these criteria, we were able to insure that the recipient was ready and willing to roll up their sleeves and take an active part in moving their organization forward online.
One last thing before I announce the winner.. I want everyone who submitted an entry to know that it was extremely difficult it was to choose only one recipient. I sincerely wish that we could have chosen all three finalists. I am amazed at the number of truly great organizations right here in Central Florida.
With that out of the way, we decided to award the package to Tampa Bay Job Links. This young organization (www.tampabay-job-links.org) almost exactly fits our mantra of always trying to help those that are trying to help themselves. They provide assistance to folks that are job hunting that includes:
- Helping candidates search for jobs that are a good fit for their experience
- Helping candidates learn to create or update their resume and write effective cover letters
- Providing group career coaching seminars and workshops
- Helps individuals deal with other issues that affect their employability, including health, family and transportation issues.
This is just a partial list of the services they offer and we are proud to be aligning with them.
Work will start almost immediately, so look for an update from us soon on our progress.
And a whole-hearted thanks again to all organizations that entered.