Portland 2020 Annual Meeting Recap

Every year we make one of our quarterly Board of Directors meetings open to our community for transparency and collaboration with our audience.

Photo credit: Meei J Lum

On January 22, 2020 we welcomed attendees to our 2nd Annual Meeting. Last year we decided to make one of our quarterly board meetings open to the public to be transparent with our community of supporters. This year we popped up at CENTRL Office Downtown with a full program highlighting what CoDesign Collaborative Portland has in store for 2020.

Board member Larry Rodgers kicked things off with a welcome and introduced Managing Director Erica Rife who looked back at our lineup of events and program in 2019, including Design Museum Mornings, Summer Story Hour, and our Annual Gala. Erica also unveiled a preview of our new Strategic Plan. The Plan is the result of over a year of strategic conversations between staff, board, council, and community — looking back on 10 successful years and setting us up for many years of success and impact to come. It outlines 10 Strategic Priorities, 5 around programming and 5 around internal infrastructure — it also lists strategic investments we aim to make over the next five years. You can download a PDF of the card we shared with attendees outlining our strategic priorities and investments here.

Board member Amy Winterowd and our Community Development Associate Jordan Hall talked about the impact that our exhibitions have on our community, including highlights of our past exhibitions Street Seats and Bespoke Bodies: The Design & Craft of Prosthetics. Jordan also announced that our next exhibition, We Design: People. Practice. Progress. will open February 13th at the Clay Creative Building. Our exhibition strategic priority is to have at least one exhibition on-view somewhere around the city throughout the year — Jordan outlined how we’ll achieve this by designing our exhibitions to be modular, utilizing mobile exhibition elements, and partnering with more venues across Portland.

Board member Matt Edlen and Erica Rife presented our financials from the 2019 fiscal year. Erica announced fiscal year 2020 goal to raise $214,000 and she shared the breakdown of revenue and expenses from 2019. Erica also announced that we will launch a Kickstarter campaign on February 11 to raise $30,000 in 30 days in support of Design Museum Magazine. The campaign will support growing distribution nationwide, adding more content to the magazine, improving print quality, and providing digital access to subscribers. If we raise $9,000 in the first 24 hours, Kickstarter will feature our project — you can pledge now before the campaign begins to ensure that happens.

Lastly, board member Jennifer Bryan discussed the importance of marketing and communications for CoDesign Collaborative’s future — she sits on our newly create Communications Committee. She brought Jordan up again for another big announcement: Jordan unveiled the new CoDesign Collaborative website and gave a virtual tour.

The program finished with board member Austen Angell introducing our Distinguished Service Medal. As a nonprofit, we rely on the support of our community and of individuals willing to give their time, money, and expertise in service to our mission to bring the transformative power of design everywhere. Erica Rife awarded the Distinguished Service Medal to Ed & Brittney Herrera and Amy Winterowd for their incredible work supporting the Museum’s programs and operations through service on our Council and direct support of programs like We Design and Street Seats. Ed is an Associate at BRIC Architecture, Brittney is Principal at HBx Studio, and Amy is Vice President of Client Solutions at JE Dunn Construction.

Distinguished Service Medal recipients with our staff. Left to right: Jordan Hall, Ed Herrera, Erica Rife, and Amy Winterowd. Photo credit: Meei J Lum