MMT Covers MMT

This edition introduces three new faces in our office, connects you with several videos and other visual delights, suggests some jumpstart summer reading and offers up a handy infographic to help you know when to rethink your website.

The calendar says it's spring but all we're seeing in the Pacific Northwest is cold, rain, snow, hail, sleet (while the rest of the country goes around in shorts). What's next in this stormy madness? Sorry, don't really want to talk about the weather this time. Nothing good to say. Shall we talk basketball? Are you part of a March Madness pool? MMT has one going, no money at stake, only reputations. It's too soon to call as it's only Round Two.

While watching out for double rainbows, we awarded more than $3.2 million, saw a survey underway, found tips on raising money without fundraising (no, not a typo) and a view into Nonprofit 101 and Big Data (including an unprecedented mapping project). And more.

Did your geraniums and roses ever stop blooming this winter? Neither did mine. I think those of us who are procrastinating pruners are being rewarded this year. And our early blooming camellia has never been more loaded with flowers and buds. Just astonishing. I think we're in for a year for the books, people. We can't tell by looking outside what month we're in. Let's watch what happens.

Well, we've certainly been having some weather! Whether it's snow, rain, sleet or wind, you've probably been dealing with at least one of those elements in the Pacific Northwest this week. The umbrellas are lining up outside our office door like army ants. And flooding has begun in vulnerable parts of our state. So be careful out there!

Wake up 2012! The color of the year is Tangerine Tango. Gotta start moving! We have two important job openings to announce, along with some other news of note...

At the December program meeting, Meyer Memorial Trust made 27 grants for more than $4.1 million to a variety of Oregon tax exempt organizations, from statewide advocacy groups to the one-school district in the small community of Arock in far southeastern Oregon. These grants bring the total awarded since MMT began operating in 1982 to 6,687 awards totaling more than $554 million.

While even the fish in the lake at Portland's Chinese Garden hunker down as light and temperatures diminish, we are awash in November news.

Each day of glorious warm sunshine like the one we are enoying in Portland today causes us to wonder if it will be the last for a good while. But even if it is, we're beginning to see a lot of fall color in our world. I've especially been noticing the maples turning scarlet and red and crimson and vermillion and everything in between lately.

We're back! Did you miss us? We experienced a lot of sunshine since we last met so I guess we really did have a summer after all. Here's hoping we get a little more of that kind of weather before the rains set in for the duration. Today is looking pretty promising in that department, from where I sit.

Didn't I promise glorious summer weather? Now do you believe me? [Believe me, I was worried too! :)]  I love to find unusual views of summer weather, like this one through the begonia leaves and flowers spilling from the basket that hangs on my front porch. Everything looks better from there.

It's that wonderful time of year in Oregon when we get to include several kinds of fresh berries from local farms in every meal we eat, like the breakfast a friend and I had at Bread and Ink Cafe last weekend. It was a meal to die for.