Nielsen Gives the Federation More than Ratings

by Jenivieve White

From the Editor: Jen is one of the most enthusiastic people I know on our national staff. She is always helpful and friendly, and she knows how to appreciate the work of others and acknowledge them. Here is her contribution:

Community involvement: what does that really mean, and who are the folks that are truly involved in their communities? It means helping your community become better one action at a time. It means showing up when help is needed, and it means you are really concerned that those you are helping are moving toward the goals they want to achieve.

The National Federation of the Blind is a volunteer-run organization by blind and sighted folks all over the United States and Puerto Rico. We run the programs of the Federation, but we also have partnerships with companies who volunteer their time and expertise to our programs, conventions, and fundraising.

For the past seven years, we have been lucky enough to have a team of volunteers from Nielsen Media Research Incorporated, located in Columbia, Maryland, who really do believe in their community, who are concerned that we are achieving our goals as an organization, and who are always willing to help when we ask.

Every quarter a team of volunteers from Nielsen helps with our Early Childhood Initiatives Program which is geared toward children aged birth to eight years. This program has close to six hundred participants, and each quarter these children are sent a packet of materials with activities to help them with their Braille and travel skills. Our Nielsen volunteer team picks up the quarterly mailing materials from NFB headquarters, collates those Braille and print documents, prints the envelopes, stuffs those envelopes, and mails those packets for us.
This wonderful team of folks has volunteered at our 6 Dot Dash events, taking on being talking signs, running or walking with blind participants, and being at the water stations throughout the race. They have helped us with NFB BELL Academy and NFB EQ programs by cutting, taping, and counting out origami squares. They have even helped with the collating and binding of our Code of Conduct documents in Braille for National Convention.

Nielsen gives their employees one day every year where they can volunteer with any organization they wish, and of course, our wonderful team shows up in full force ready to do whatever we ask of them.

The Nielsen team of volunteers consists of many folks, but I definitely want to give special thanks to a number of these wonderful people. Neil Eisenberg, Vice President of Finance, was one of the first persons we met at Nielsen when our partnership began, and he has been our staunch supporter ever since. He is always one of the first to volunteer, and he also allows other employees to take time away from their duties to help us each quarter.

Sue Thomas is a project manager at Nielsen, and she has volunteered in every way we have asked, including at the 6 Dot Dash, and she is my main contact each quarter when she comes to pick up the materials for the mailing. Rowena Flores, Crystal Gore-Fisher, and Bhavini Thacker are all on the core team of volunteers as well. There have been so many other volunteers from Nielsen that I cannot name them all, but I want everyone to know that this team helps keep our programs running, saves us countless hours of time, and reaches out to let us know they are here for us whenever we need them.

Our partnership with Nielsen Media Research Incorporated shows how impactful partnering is to our mission, programs, and our blind members. We will continue to hold this relationship in the highest regard as we thank all of the volunteers who help keep this organization moving forward.