NOVEMBER 19, 2009 ISSUE
Donating Her Expertise
Live United Volunteer Spotlight—Jeanne Supin
Editor’s Note: High Country Press is supporting the High Country United Way’s Live United campaign by spotlighting volunteers in our community. For the duration of the series, volunteers come into our office, pick up their Live United T-shirt and tell High Country Press their views on volunteerism and what they contribute to the community while encouraging others to make a local impact, as well. This week, we focus on Jeanne Supin of OASIS, which is a United Way funded partner.
Jeanne Supin, a professional organizational consultant, is donating her expertise to help OASIS staff review the organization’s staff performance evaluation process. “Because I don’t just wear the shirt, I live it.” Photo by Corinne Saunders
“I’ve always believed in service and contributing to my community,” said Jeanne Supin. “I also have tremendous respect and admiration for those who work day-to-day in nonprofit agencies. They are some of the most talented professionals I know—they are exceptionally passionate about what they do and they effortlessly juggle half a dozen job responsibilities simultaneously, all on shoestring budgets and low salaries.”
A professional organizational consultant, Supin is currently volunteering her expertise to help OASIS staff grow their own skills and create new ways to do staff performance evaluations, she said.
“I help them with internal operations,” Supin said, adding that she began the process of reexamining performance review practices with the staff about six months ago.
In 2005, she helped OASIS with strategic planning, and last year, she facilitated a one-day board retreat for a strategic planning follow-up, she said.
Supin initially heard about OASIS through friends who had volunteered with the organization. “I always heard great things about the organization,” she said.
Supin, who had attended the annual Midnight at the OASIS fundraiser several times, joined a group of women, formerly the Watauga County Cabbage Queens, in 2003 or 2004 and began raising money for OASIS, an organization she supports wholeheartedly.
“Now as a Peace Rose Sister, I’m selling calendars,” she said, adding that all the “Celebrating Women” calendar proceeds benefit OASIS.
Supin moved to the High Country in 1995, when her daughter was 3, and her first local volunteer experience was serving as the chair of the board of directors at Mountain Pathways Montessori School in Boone for six to seven years, she said.
“My daughter was a student there,” she said. “I put a tremendous amount of time and effort in there [and] loved it.”
Supin makes a point to only serve on one organization’s board of directors at a time. She recently joined the personnel committee at OASIS, and her future volunteer involvement most likely includes an environmental organization, she said, noting that there are many great local organizations to that end and she is passionate about the environment.
Anyone can volunteer with local nonprofits, Supin said.
“It doesn’t matter what your talent is,” she said. “Nonprofits and their staff need accountants, plumbers, artists, babysitters, massage therapists, doctors, bakers, graphic designers [and] webmasters.”
Supin especially encourages persons in their 20s and earl
y 30s to become involved with nonprofits, because this will revitalize the organizations, bringing them much-needed new energy.
“They just have a different way of looking at the world,” Supin said of those in their 20s and early 30s, “and the executive directors I’ve talked to are really looking for that [and] want that.
“The younger folks…have no tolerance for deliberations, no tolerance for long meetings; they want to get stuff done,” she said. “They have a network savvy that’s totally bewildering to those of us who are older.”
For more information about OASIS’ “Celebrating Women” 2010 calendar, click to www.highcountrypress.com/weekly/2009/11-05-09/celebrating-women-calendar.htm.
For more information on OASIS, click to www.oasisinc.org.
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