Diane

October 6, 2009 - Wilmington real estate developer and entrepreneur H. David Swain and his wife Diane have given $1 million to the University of North Carolina Wilmington to support economic research and business development services through the Cameron School of Business. In appreciation for their generous support, the university has named the H. David and Diane Swain Center for Business and Economic Services in their honor.

The program began in 1947 when retired USMC Maj. Bill Hendricks and a group of Marine Reservists in Los Angeles collected 5,000 toys and distributed them to needy children. The idea started with Hendricks’ wife, Diane, who made a Raggedy Ann doll and asked her husband to distribute it to an organization that provided needy children with toys. No type of agency existed, so she encouraged him to start one. The pilot program was so successful that the USMC adopted Toys for Tots in 1948 and expanded it to a nationwide campaign. From 1947 to 2007, Marines distributed more than 386 million toys

Last month, FundRaising Success named the winners of our 2008 Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards. Take some time now to learn a little more about them and their perspectives on fundraising. Fundraising Professional of the Year Michelle Speas Vice president of development and external relations Old Salem Museums & Gardens (Winston-Salem, N.C.) www.oldsalem.org Organization’s mission: To preserve, interpret and operate the restored town of Salem, from its founding in 1766 to the mid-1850s, as one of America’s largest living history museums. Annual operating budget: $5.8 million How much raised annually: $6.9 million Role models: My staff. They’re my source of inspiration, and they

Since day one, I’ve held that those of us who are responsible for putting out FundRaising Success learn more from our readers than our readers learn from us. And this year’s Fundraising Professionals of the Year Awards have served to punctuate that belief. Each year, we send out nominating forms that are nice and neat, with perfectly balanced categories that cover what we think are all the bases. And each year, we name winners in those respective categories. But this year, the nominations weren’t so cut and dry, and we were reminded that there are thousands of fundraising pros out there who toil in

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