Monthly Archives: May 2020

Pandemic relief

LISC Phoenix facilitates COVID-19 aid

The unprecedented economic impact of COVID-19 took a huge toll on small businesses. LISC Phoenix is in the thick of helping those businesses, especially those owned by women and people of color, get through the crisis.

Here are some of the stories that capture some of LISC’s equitable economic development work:

“2 Beloved Small Restaurants receive Verizon LISC Small Business Recovery Fund Grants”

“Banking on community trust and relationships to secure equitable access to PPP”

Arts Heroes, 2019-20

Heroic efforts for the arts

For the third consecutive year, JDD Specialties wrote all profiles for the ON Media Arts Hero program. Arts heroes are honored each month in theater programs for venues in Phoenix and Tucson.

The 2019-20 profiles of heroes are available in digital booklets:

Phoenix arts heroes

Tucson arts heroes

Piper Trust

Promoting special initiatives

JDD Specialties is a consultant and writer for Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, one of the nation’s top-100 foundations. The trust awards annually about $23 million in grants to nonprofits in Maricopa County.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, JDD Specialties helped the trust communicate a multifaceted, rapid response of strategic emergency grants.

In August 2015, JDD Specialties helped the trust and the Arizona Commission on the Arts with a joint announcement about a three-year grant to launch the AZ Creative Aging initiative, which a national leader of the creative aging movement called “brilliant.”

JDD Specialties wrote the extended profile on Russ Perlich, the 2015 Piper Trust Encore Career Prize awardee and the brief profiles of 2016 Encore Prizes for Exceptional Organizations.

Bianca Buliga

Alumni Spotlight

Bianca Buliga grew up thinking ‘business’ was a dirty word and that nothing good comes of its practice. Her early perceptions seemed diametrically opposed to her life goal of making positive, societal change. The 2017 graduate of the ASU Thunderbird School of Global Management knows better now. In April 2020, She was featured in the school’s Alumni Spotlight.

Gbemi Abudu

Alumni Spotlight

Gbemi Abudu’s ambition to lead a fulfilled life could very well change the worlds of young women and transform markets in Africa. The ASU Thunderbird School of Global Management Alumni Spotlight was on her in April.

Knowledge Network

Showcasing Thunderbird talent

The ASU Thunderbird School of Global Management Knowledge Network website highlights the impressive work and expertise of faculty. Here are examples of some of the work JDD Specialties added to the website:

Business is Business Except When It’s Not

Global Strategy in the Time of COVID-19