A Southern Nevada community event that has become an annual ritual hopes to connect businesses, nonprofits and community members and create opportunities for them to support one another.
Winning 4a Cause, founded in 2021, held its annual Nonprofit Awareness Day event Saturday at the Desert Breeze Community Center in the west Las Vegas Valley, near South Durango Drive and West Mountain Spring Road, drawing dozens of organizations and a large crowd to mingle and learn more about available services, programs and resources in the area.
Shaun Maddox, a marketer by trade, founded the organization Winning 4a Cause after recognizing how important community relations are to a nonprofit’s success.
“One of the things I’ve learned is that Southern Nevada has many smaller nonprofits doing incredible work and providing valuable resources, but the public often doesn’t know they exist,” Maddox said. “Unlike larger organizations, many simply don’t have large marketing budgets to create that awareness.”
Saturday’s free event featured a wide array of community needs, including homelessness support, health and wellness and children’s causes, from both small and well-known nonprofits.
Karen DeMarco, membership committee chairwoman at the Children’s Service Guild of Southern Nevada, said she signed up because “we just wanted to put our name out there and get more participation to help the families and children of the juvenile court services.”
The organization, which is one of the oldest philanthropies in Clark County, provides scholarships to children going through the family court system and clothes and diapers to Peggy’s Attic. It also supports programs at the Department of Juvenile Justice Services and has a large fundraiser for Child Haven.
It was the second time Racheal Rickman, founder of 500 Projects of Love, attended the event. Rickman’s nonprofit prepares hundreds of meals for the homeless each month and provides other resources. Along with networking with other nonprofits, Rickman said she hoped to recruit volunteers, which has been one of her organization’s biggest challenges, as well as connect with others in need of services.
“Collaborate and connection are two really important words in the nonprofit space because it allows you to work together to make a bigger impact,” Rickman said. “When you’re working together, the resources are spread farther.”
Cheryl Ballard, CEO of B&A Entertainment Services, which concentrates on programming in health and wellness, youth development and breast cancer outreach, echoed those sentiments, noting how important networking was for connecting people in need of services.
“Our small organization that started in 2013 became a very popular organization here in the state of Nevada because we did little things, baby steps, working with collaborating and networking programs like this and that’s how small organizations get bigger,” Ballard said.
Maddox hoped the event helped members of the community and participating nonprofits make new connections.
“Someone may walk in simply curious about what’s happening and walk out having discovered an organization or resource that could make a meaningful difference in their life or the life of someone they know,” Maddox said. “We also want people to understand that supporting a nonprofit doesn’t always mean writing a check. Sometimes it’s volunteering an hour, sharing information, donating a skill or resource or simply introducing someone to an organization that can help them.”
Contact Devan Patel at dpatel@reviewjournal.com.
