A Word From Our President: 2020 in the Rear View

Hi - This is Jade Nunes (President, GET Phoenix).

I think the majority of us can agree that 2020 was...One helluva year! 🤣 It was a year that none of us saw coming. Twist, turns, and stomach-wrenching changes that even the most extreme roller coaster ever built couldn’t muster.

I want to start out this new year by saying a huge “Thank You!” to the members of the GET Phoenix board who had to pivot and get creative about the events we’ve planned, and how to engage our membership in a new virtual way of hosting our signature events.

I think back to the first GET event of the year - our annual kick-off event, that was attended by over 90 people at Papago Golf Course.

January has always the biggest, and most challenging event of the GET Phoenix event lineup. As we were planning the event, we joked that #ShitIsStressful.

Little did we know that would become the GET Phoenix mantra of the 2020 year.

Running a grassroots, volunteer, nonprofit networking group is amazing and rewarding. But guys - it truly is stressful. And with a nasty global bug going around, we were barred from having in-person events.

No one left us a “Running a Nonprofit Board During a Global Pandemic for Idiots” book, and so we had to get creative.

Like the rest of the world, we adopted Zoom as our tool to host our board meetings. And then we rolled it out for our networking events.

We had a virtual comedy sketch show.

We did a virtual yoga and sound healing night.

We hosted a virtual panel discussion.

There are members of our Board that haven’t seen each other since February. Myself included.

And yet, the members of the board, who I now get to call amazing friends, are still motivated to meet on their own time to plan GET Phoenix’s virtual events.

We’ve also had our amazing members and event attendees continue to support us. For that reason, I can’t say THANK YOU enough.

After months and months of socially distanced and virtual events, I can’t even begin to describe how much the GET Phoenix board members miss seeing the faces of our members and new friends.

While we haven’t had the ability to ‘cheers’ one another on the successes of the year, it still has been a year of successes.

Here are some things that GET Phoenix was able to accomplish during 2020 in spite of the pandemic.

1. Donated thousands of dollars for UMOM, AZ Helping Hands, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Arizona, and BLM organizations.
   

2. During the uncertainty COVID-19 created for job security, we saw our members get promotions and better paying jobs as a direct result of their involvement with GET Phoenix.
   

3. Extended memberships for those who registered during our membership drive in January.
   

4. Planned our first virtual events (which, by the way, we’ve found to be WAY harder than in-person events).

I hope you’ll join us in 2021 in supporting the mission of local nonprofits and to connect with like minded young professionals here in the valley through GET Phoenix’s monthly programming and networking events for young professionals.

While 2020 wasn’t the year I had hoped for (was it anyone’s year?) I am more proud than ever of the resilience of my shared GET Phoenix community, board, and have full faith that GET Phoenix has a long, bright future of bringing people together to build a better and more connected world.

And remember, even though #ShitIsStressful, we’re all stronger together.😉

Sincerely,

Jade Nunes

President, GET Phoenix Young Professionals

P.S. - GET Phoenix has big things planned for 2021. Check out all the details [HERE].