DFW Great 100 Nurses Gala

Are you a nurse leader looking for a special way to recognize nurses? If the answer is yes, read on to discover a recognition program that is one of the best. This amazing recognition program is designed for nurses and provides recognition beyond the walls of a specific organization. It is, however, specific to a community. The program is easily built by nursing leaders within a community using a tool kit available online. The toolkit recommends 12 months to build the program but both Amarillo, Texas and Lubbock, Texas built it in less. Both communities recognized 25 nurses.

You may have heard of the Dallas / Fort Worth (DFW) Great 100 nurses Gala. This event takes place every year in the DFW area and has for the past 27 years. The selection process used to find the Great 100 nurses takes place year after year as the DFW Great 100 Board conducts a process to review hundreds of submissions and score them against predetermined criteria to determine the 100 nurses with the highest score. The DFW Great 100 nurses organization published a tool kit to help other communities duplicate what they have created and you can find the tool kit by going to www.dfwgreat100nurses.com, click on the “contact us” option on their home page and send them a request for their tool kit.

While the DFW Great 100 tool kit helps to build the foundation of the program, the goal of this writing is to communicate lessons learned from South Plains Great 25 Nurses established this year by nurse leaders in Lubbock, Texas.

Establishing the Board:

The initial Board for South Plains Great 25 Nurses consists of the local four acute care hospital CNOs, the four Deans of the Schools of Nursing, the four presidents of the local Nursing Associations, the Leader of a Regional Critical Access Hospital group and a Primary Nurse from a Veterans Administration Clinic. The Board does not need to be this large but we wanted maximum community communication from these leaders.

Establishing your community:

Both Amarillo and Lubbock used the map as published by the Texas Hospital Association. Amarillo is Region 1A (26 counties in the Panhandle) and Lubbock is 1B (16 counties in the South Plains).

Establishing the Board bylaws and Officers:

This task is guided by the DFW Great 100 Nurses tool kit. The toolkit is easily followed and the timeline for this process basically took one meeting and some minimal e-mail traffic.

Meetings:

We use Zoom, a web-based video conferencing tool that accommodates a video image as well as a phone connection for those calling in only. We meet monthly at a set time and no one has to leave their office.

Bank Account:

To establish a general fund bank account, one will first need an employer tax identification number from the Internal Revenue Service (www.IRS.gov) and a Certificate of Formation from the State (www.sos.state.tx.us). After these two documents are obtained, the state will send you an application to be tax exempt. We have been waiting 4 months so far to get a response from the State to be tax exempt.

Establishing a 501c3:

Some donors will want to claim the donation on their income tax so it is important to have that option. We opted to use the Community Foundation of West Texas (CFWT), a proprietary 501c3. They provide this service for many philanthropy organizations in and around Lubbock. This option is cheaper than hiring an attorney to create and manage a 501c3 for your new organization.

The DFW Great 100 Nurses initially used a foundation department attached to one of the hospitals represented by a board member and The Panhandle Great 25 Nurses used the local Texas Nurses Association. You may speak with those organizations for the pros and cons of connecting your nurse recognition organization to another organization.

Establishing a Logo:

Fortunately, we had a Board member whose daughter was a graphic artist and created our logo for free.  We plan to make a pin with the logo and give one to all awardees.

Getting organized:

The documents included in the DFW Great 100 toolkit provided example documents to help guide us with the startup tasks. We created four committees to get the work done and this structure worked well. The basic functions of the committees are described below.

1. The Communication and Marketing Committee created a Facebook page and spoke to the local news media to get the word out.

2. The Sponsorship Committee created the donation recognition levels and assigned Board members to help call medical organizations throughout the 16 counties in the South Plains.

3. The selection and nomination committee set up an e-mail to collect submissions and solicited a reviewer from each organization as represented by the board.

4. The Event Committee secured a venue for the event and created the program.

Our initial financial support came from the Board members organizations. Most of those donations were used to establish an operations bank account. Some donors wanted the 501c3 option which was accommodated by the contract with the CFWT.  The CFWT charges a 1% fee annually to manage the 501c3 and requires an organization to achieve a $5,000.00 balance in 5 years. Once the organization reaches 10,000.00, scholarships can then begin to be awarded.

Our inaugural event happened on October 3, 2017 and was attended by all of the 25 awardees along with their 200+ supporters. The Board received multiple compliments from the attendees and it was certainly a fun evening.

While our local organizations compete for nurses and patients, this program has pulled us together to celebrate the value of nurses and the effect they have on the health of our community.

I am happy to answer questions and help you establish this program if needed. You may contact Tim Howell DNP, RN, CENP at timhowell@umchealthsystem.com or call me at 806-775-8878.