We are proud to announce our partnership with B1G1.  This is our first official charitable organization going into the new year.

• B1G1 moves giving from an ad-hoc, event-driven model to a very specific transaction-based giving model — a world where every transaction gives back and makes a difference.
• It means that giving becomes an effortless habit, changing our lives and making a difference every second, every day and in every way.
• B1G1 brings the power, resonance and ‘connected-ness’ of transaction-based giving and Impact-Based Giving to the literal hundreds of thousands of small-to-medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) that form the backbone of every economy.

Please check out there site at www.b1g1.com and donate as appropriate through our web link.

http://www.b1g1.com/buy1give1/businessstory?companyID=100149

More to come in 2012….

Y’vonne Ormond

Director, Smart Mentoring

Hi Smart Leaders–

To round out our year Barbara and I would like to share our gratitude challenges with our global community.

While we made some great traction in the Global Mentorship Pilot program we are still personally wishing we had more time to dedicate to our community.  We appreciate Grace Ocean our LI moderator for her leadership and moderation activities.

It was a year of challenges for Barbara and I.  Between the two of us we experienced, broken relationships, death of loved ones, balancing diagnosis and special needs children, move to new geographic regions and sick parents.  We thank you for being leaders and fostering great conversations in our community.  It’s all of you that contribute that made our passions achievable.

I’d like to recognize our SLN Program Volunteer community.  For those of you that aren’t aware we had 11 dedicated volunteers across the globe that gave the gift of their free time in a variety of activities for Smart Leaders Network in 2011.

Glen Turner

Roxanne Kichar

Andrea Anderson

Donna Wocher

Michelle Dib

Neelesh Mehta

Grace Ocean

Lisa Rubenstein

Shannon Pruitt

Anne Islan

Kristin Austin

Additionally we have 12 teams of volunteers (24 individuals) that make up our pilot program currently running.  Each of you play(ed) a role in evolving SLN in 2011 and we’d like to say we couldn’t have done it without you.

In the new year we have some firm goals and great ideas we’d like to share for 2012.  They aren’t fully vetted so any and all ideas are welcome. If you find these ideas as something you’re interested in supporting feel free to reach out.  Happy to build a broader program volunteer community.

2012 Goals:

• Complete the Global Mentorship Pilot by April 2012 and determine lessons learned; IN PROGRESS
• Set up business entities in USA/Canada and Europe/Asia Pac – We need to formalize our business licenses, decide on financial operations and determine how to manage a charitable and profitable services; IN PROGRESS
• Start our “Women in Leadership” series – I have a variety of interesting and successful women from all paths of life lined up for us to profile on our website.  In addition Barbara is working on establishing a sub group to Smart Leaders in LinkedIn for broadening our reach and community targeted at women.
• Increase our global reach the leveraging our voice through relationship building and social media
• Increase “rich” content on our web site

Ideas:

We have a variety of ideas we need to develop a plan and approach for.  Barbara and I wanted to share as this early stage.

• Recruit volunteers for guest blogging and webinars on the Smart Leaders Network website
• Leverage current volunteer base to provide social awareness of our group and causes
• Bring together a concept called “I sell Myself”; Offering up a skilled professional leader in the community through an auction of “man hours” to grow a business or individual with all costs going towards charity
• And more to come….

As we gain your ideas and develop our 2012 focuses we’ll ensure we community to all of you in our community.

It’s been a pleasure working with all of our volunteers, in our community and mentor/mentee teams.   Have a nice and restful holiday period with your loved ones and we look forward to what 2012 brings.

Barbara Nowark – Rowe – Smart Leaders Network Co-Founder/Managing Director

Y’vonne Ormond – Director, Smart Mentoring

http://smartleadersnetwork.com/

Twitter: yormond & smartleaders