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Note #8011 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

JHH campaign hires Northeast coordinator
03493
November 17, 2003

JHH campaign hires Northeast coordinator

Steering committee gets its first look at colorful new logo

by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - The campaign to raise $40 million for Presbyterian Church (USA) mission at home and abroad has hired a funds developer to head up the campaign in the northeastern United States.

Susan J. Sommerville, who worked for the Presbyterian Foundation for five years, is the second associate director of the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign (JHH). She will be based in Long Island, NY.

The JHH steering committee authorized her hiring during a meeting here last week.

Sommerville also has raised funds for Hospice of Long Island and the Medical Benevolence Foundation. She is an elder member of First Presbyterian Church of Oyster Bay, NY, and a master of divinity student enrolled part-time at New Brunswick Theological Seminary.

Bill Saul, a co-moderator of the committee, said he was impressed with Sommerville during their first meeting. "You could immediately tell it wasn't just a job with her," he said. "It was a call."

 From the outset, JHH was envisioned as a "major donor" campaign, rather than a grassroots, collection-plate-based fund-raiser.  The committee learned that the staff has begun identifying people capable of making "lead" gifts, which can serve as catalysts to additional giving.  With this information in hand, Associate Development Director Malcolm Logan said, JHH is ready to change its thrust from prospect identification to donor cultivation.

As of Oct. 31, the committee learned, pledges and cash contributions of
$6,057,444 had been received from 196 individuals, 56 churches, seven
presbyteries and six other institutions.

Staff members also unveiled a colorful new logo and other promotional
materials created for the JHH campaign by Debbie Galloway of Galloway
Communications; learned about a mission-oriented promotional video to be
produced by the PC(USA) Office of Communication; got a progress report from
the search committee assigned the task of hiring a new campaign director; and
talked in carefully guarded secrecy about the possibility of naming a
high-profile "honorary chairman" for the campaign.

The soon-to-be-familiar logo was a hit with the committee. Galloway said it
is intended to reflect the thought process campaign leaders hope donors will
go through as they consider making donations.

It is composed of three square panes of stained glass that can be stacked
vertically or horizontally. The first shows praying hands, the second a pair
of hands molding the shape of "something new and wonderful," in Galloway's
words, and the third, the joining of heart and hands to which the campaign's
name refers.

After the meeting, Saul said he feels "better than I have in months" about
the status of the campaign.

"We have so many things just about to start," he said. "There were a lot of
steps that had to be taken before we could begin to really do the work, and
now those things are in place. I think we're in good shape."

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