Our Executive Director, Cathy Cowan Becker (right), recently received a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work in Bonn, Germany, for ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, a global network of more than 2500 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. She will be stepping down from her role at the end of April.
We will miss Cathy’s work for Simply Living and wish her the very best as she continues her work for a sustainable future on the international stage. During her tenure, we made significant strides toward our objectives, including:
- Purchasing a state-of-the-art donor relationship management system
- Integrating our financial books with the donor database
- Relaunching Sustainable U with discussion and skills courses
- Organizing dozens of community education events on sustainability
- Obtaining a grant from the Columbus Foundation to build a sustainable business directory
- Launching an intern program with five summer and four fall interns
- Partnering with other community organizations on environmental advocacy
- Redesigning our weekly e-newsletter, increasing open rates by over 1000%
- Transitioning to Google Workspace and initiating an editorial calendar
- Redesigning our website, which launched this week
“Simply Living is a wonderful organization that existed for three decades before I joined and will continue its great work,” Cathy said. “During my time as ED, we accomplished a number of foundational tasks that will set the nonprofit up for continued success. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to lead Simply Living for the past 1.5 years.”
Cathy will remain involved with Simply Living through Summer 2022 with weekly meetings to support the sustainable business directory and summer interns.
The Simply Living Board is managing the transition with existing staff and will be announcing a search for a new executive director. As you may recall, we postponed our Annual Meeting and are planning a new date and location later this spring. We are actively recruiting and bringing on new Board members with a goal of expanding the Board from 7 to 13 members.
The Annual Meeting will offer an excellent opportunity to announce changes in the works to continue the momentum we have built and to solicit your input on the future direction of the organization.
If you have questions or suggestions please email hello@simplyliving.org.
The Simply Living Board of Directors