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SRC Named Outstanding Philanthropic Business of 2015

The Association of Fundraising Professionals-Ozarks Chapter, Named Springfield Remanufacturing Corp. the Outstanding Philanthropic Business of the Year.

Lisa Doyel is a Sales and Customer Service Specialist with Springfield Remanufacturing Corp., and also serves on SRC’s Community Relations Committee:

Lisa Doyel:  “The way we look at it, is by doing this, we’re just teaching our families and children that helping each other makes the world a better place.”

In her 21 years with SRC, Lisa Doyel has seen firsthand SRC’s helping hand reach out to the Ozarks and make our world a better place.  SRC’s community outreach was recognized by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Ozarks Chapter, when in November it named the company its Outstanding Philanthropic Business/Corp. of the Year.  Lisa Doyel says philanthropy is ingrained into the culture of the company.

Lisa Doyel: “One of the things SRC teaches with the concept of Open Management to our people is when there’s an issue or a problem, we all work together to solve it.  We’ve learned that through so much.  When we see the community having an issue or a problem such as The Harmony House last year where there weren’t enough rooms or places to house the ladies coming in, we decided to give a significant donation to Harmony House to help them purchase a new building which will hold more clients.  If we see Salvation Army needs diapers or fans, or if we see something on the local news usually we turn around and try to help as quickly as we can.  We feel that helping those in our community basically helps ourselves.  That’s somebody’s relative or brother or uncle that you’re helping.  Somebody knows somebody out there who needs help.”

Springfield Remanufacturing Corp. was established in 1983 by 13 former employees of International Harvester.  On day one, 119 persons were employed.  Today, the company which remanufactures equipment for the mining, automotive, agriculture, oil and gas, construction and trucking industries, is owned and operated by a workforce of 1,600, led by President and CEO Jack Stack. 

Lisa Doyel:  “One of the things we try to instill in our people is You Get What You Give.  If you want your community to be a better place, if you want people to care about each other, then the way to do that is from within.  When something goes wrong with someone inside the company for instance, we start “What can we do to help?”  Do we need to raise money to help this person; do we need to cut wood because they have no fuel for heat?  Do we need to do something?  When we teach our children how to do that, when we do that with each other every day, that’s what starts it and then it continues to grow from there.”

To encourage institutional philanthropy, Lisa Doyel says about 10 years ago SRC created its Community Relations Committee, with volunteers from each SRC subsidiary meeting once a month. 

Lisa Doyel:  “In the meetings we look at different non-profits which send us sponsorship requests for runs they’re having or races or different fundraisers they are having in the community. We look at those and try to decide how best to distribute our funds and be able to help each and every one of those”

Lisa Doyel says SRC’s Community Relations Committee looks at certain criteria before awarding its support. 

Lisa Doyel:  “Number one, it has to be a non-profit.  Number two, we want to try to help as many people as we can with that donation. For instance we sponsor Lost and Found; we sponsor Make A Wish Foundation or Springfield Boys-Girls Club or the Red Cross.  Number three, we try to help people in our own community first.”  

And it’s not just SRC donations going out to those in need.  So far this year some 60 SRC employees have volunteered their time, tools and expertise to over 140 non-profit groups.

Brent Dunn is Executive Director of the MSU Foundation, and President of the Association of Fundraising Professionals-Ozarks Chapter, which named SRC Outstanding Philanthropic Corp. for 2015.  “There were several organizations SRC assisted with, both at the corporate level and the individual employee level. It was the culture of SRC that stood out by serving on boards, by assisting with certain problems or opportunities non-profits have.  It’s really of service to different types of non-profits, just a wide variety of organizations SRC has touched individually and corporately.”

The KSMU Sense of Community Series continues on air all week, and on ksmu.org.    

Mike Smith's career at KSMU began in 1980 as a student announcer when the former Navy Submariner attended (then) SMSU with help from the GI Bill. In 1982 Smith became a full time member of the KSMU family as "Chief Announcer", responsible for the acquisition, training and scheduling of the student announcing staff. It was also in 1982 when Smith first produced "Seldom Heard Music" a broadcast of Bluegrass which is still heard on KSMU and ksmu.org every Saturday night at 7CT.