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2024 Elevate Conference unites Alabama nonprofits and the Alabama Power Foundation to spark positive change across the state – Alabama News Center

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2024 Elevate Conference unites Alabama nonprofits and the Alabama Power Foundation to spark positive change across the state – Alabama News Center


2024 Elevate Conference unites Alabama nonprofits and the Alabama Power Foundation to spark positive change across the state

More than 250 nonprofit leaders from all corners of Alabama came together in Birmingham recently to attend the 2024 Elevate Conference, hosted by the Alabama Power Foundation. This annual event is a chance for nonprofit trailblazers to connect, exchange ideas and get reenergized as they work toward making a bigger impact in communities across the state.

“We share the incredible gift and the challenge of building up Alabama and her people – that’s the mission that keeps all of us going,” said Staci Brown Brooks, Alabama Power vice president of Charitable Giving, president of the Alabama Power Foundation and executive director of Alabama Business Charitable Trust Fund, in her opening remarks during the conference kickoff dinner at Protective Stadium.

This year’s conference was also a time of celebration – complete with cupcakes, confetti cannons and a giant birthday card – as the Alabama Power Foundation marked its 35th anniversary. The foundation was established on Oct. 31, 1989, with five focus areas: educational advancement, civic and community development, arts and cultural enrichment, environmental stewardship, and health and human services.

“Our five focus areas really have remained unchanged for the past 35 years,” Brooks said during her State of the Foundation address. “We’ve chosen to be consistent. We’ve chosen to provide what the state of Alabama needs.”

Brooks went on to explain that instead of deemphasizing any focus area, the foundation decided to ramp up efforts in particular subcategories. For example, within educational advancement, the foundation has increased its support of two-year colleges and Historically Black Colleges and Universities in recent years.

In 2023, the foundation awarded 1,063 grants for a total of $15,247,130 of giving across the foundation’s five focus areas:

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  • $737,550 for Arts and Cultural Enrichment.
  • $5,326,606 for Civic and Community Development.
  • $6,165,255 for Educational Advancement.
  • $813,040 for Environmental Stewardship.
  • $2,231,679 for Health and Human Services.

Additionally, Brooks highlighted the continuing partnership between many nonprofits at the conference and the Alabama Power Service Organization (APSO), comprising more than 6,700 Alabama Power and Southern Company employees in Alabama who gave more than 21,000 volunteer hours in 2023. Brooks also applauded the ongoing work of the Energizers, made up of Alabama Power and Southern Company retirees and spouses who gave more than 39,000 volunteer hours in 2023.

But this year’s Elevate served as a birthday party where the guests were the center of attention. The conference was designed to give nonprofit leaders the practical tools they need to continue their meaningful work.

Day two of the conference included a panel discussion on strategic fundraising and grant writing featuring Rusha Smith, executive director of Freshwater Land Trust; Chad McEachren, president and CEO of Edmundite Missions; and Pamela Reed Phipps, executive director of Grace House Ministries.

Brooks said she curated the panel, selecting leaders who have shown the ability to “turn straw into gold – or a little bit into a lot.”

Jeff Ware, director of philanthropy for the Nature Conservancy in Alabama, has attended several Elevate conferences and said the panel discussion was a great example of why he keeps coming back.

“I always find something useful,” Ware said. “I was just thinking as the grant panel was speaking that I’ve been in development for more than 30 years, fundraising for different organizations, and I know about grant writing, but they reminded me of some things that maybe had slipped my memory, and their passion for what they were doing inspired me to think in new ways about what I want to do.”

Jake McKenzie, CEO of Intermark Group, led a workshop on psychology-based marketing. (contributed)

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Jake McKenzie, CEO of Intermark Group, led a workshop on psychology-based marketing, stressing the importance of brand building and offering ways to leverage artificial intelligence.

Paul Kennedy, president of the Walker Area Community Foundation, said he appreciated that McKenzie’s talk gave him a lot to think about.

“I’m a lifetime learner, and I’m always coming to hone my craft and to be better at what I’m doing,” Kennedy said. “I’m wondering when I meet with somebody for the first time how am I setting my brand up to be in their permanent memory as the subconscious default, so that when they think of charity, philanthropy, they think of us.”

But opportunities to network at the conference are equally important to Kennedy.

“It’s smart to come every year so that I stay connected to the people that are on the Alabama Power Foundation team that I need to know,” he said. “And all my peers are coming, too – organizations that we’re currently funding, ones that we don’t know about that we might want to fund and ones that might want to know about us. So, it’s a great opportunity to get to see your classmates. It’s a little bit of a reunion.”

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Whether over a meal or during designated networking time, connections are made and collaborations are born at Elevate.

Catherine Goudreau, executive director of Better Basics, discussed potential partnerships with Adrienne Marshall and Danielle Tipton of The Literacy Council of Central Alabama. Stephanie Shorter of Hope Inspired Ministries scheduled a meeting with McEachren, president and CEO of Edmundite Missions.

For Susan Sellers, CEO of United Ability, the Elevate Conference was key to opening doors for major collaborations with the Life Is Good apparel company.

“They had never done any kind of T-shirt or anything that was centered on individuals with disabilities,” Sellers said. But a conversation at a past conference led to a partnership with the brand and a line of “Inclusion Is Good” T-shirts.

This event aims for attendees to leave both informed and inspired.

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Opening night featured a keynote address by life coach and motivational speaker Timothy Alexander. After a horrific car accident in 2006, during the fall of his senior year in high school when he was fast becoming one of the best football players in Alabama, Alexander was paralyzed from the waist down. Refusing to take no for an answer, Alexander went on to attend the University of Alabama at Birmingham – on a football scholarship – and was instrumental in bringing back UAB’s football, bowling and rifling teams after they were cut in 2014.

Alexander’s talk centered on the importance of “keeping the main thing the main thing” or staying focused on one’s vision. He also stressed the importance of having a growth mindset, the kind of mindset that allows a person to turn adversity into opportunity.

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The conference closed with a keynote address by Leland Melvin, the only person in history to catch a pass in the National Football League and in space. A former wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, Melvin is an engineer and NASA astronaut whose journey from the gridiron to the heavens was riddled with setbacks and injuries. By sharing his story of “grit, grace and second chances,” Melvin illustrated the power of community and commitment.

Learning about all the different ways the Alabama Power Foundation works with local communities was a highlight of the conference for Jamie Brown, director of development for Heart of Alabama Food Bank – so much so that she began to tear up as she reflected on the foundation’s impact. But her favorite part of this year’s Elevate conference were the talks by Alexander and Melvin.

“The keynotes were so inspiring,” Brown said. “It really filled my cup.”

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After attending last year’s conference, which was held in Montgomery, Patricia Butts of the Lee County Literacy Coalition became a fast fan of the event’s atmosphere and the thoughtful preparation that she said she felt went into bringing the event to life.

“Working in nonprofits and being in a leadership role, we’re usually caring for others,” Butts said. “When I came last year, I really felt cared for.”

Karlos Finley, executive director of the Africatown Redevelopment Corporation, said what he appreciated most about Elevate was the intentionality of each day’s agenda as well as the intentionality of each person attending the event.

“We all know why we’re here – to work toward a common goal because we’re all a community,” Finley said. “It’s this kind of initiative that I think really breeds an environment for us to succeed. It’s about all boats being raised by that rising tide, but we must be in the water in order to be effective. This is one of those events that puts everybody in the water.”

To learn more about the Alabama Power Foundation, APSO, Energizers and the ABC Trust, visit powerofgood.com.

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Alabama

Kalen DeBoer says kicker Graham Nicholson has found his rhythm at Alabama

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Kalen DeBoer says kicker Graham Nicholson has found his rhythm at Alabama


Kalen DeBoer calls them “gimmie kicks.” The head coach’s philosophy has always been to give his kickers as many opportunities from short-distance attempts early in the season in order to get them in a rhythm and build up their confidence.

That’s the plan anyway. Alabama’s big-play offense prevented that transition for Miami-Ohio transfer Graham Nicholson in his first season with the Crimson Tide this year.

Nicholson, who earned the Lou Groza Award last season, didn’t even attempt a field goal in Alabama’s first two games. He pushed his first attempt wide right from 46 yards out at Wisconsin in Week 3. After hitting a 28-yarder against Georgia two weeks later, he didn’t get another attempt until the Week 8 loss against Tennessee, where he went 1 of 2, coming up short on a 54-yard try before hitting the target from 35 yards out.

Since then Nicholson has been perfect, connecting on two field goals against Missouri as well as one last week against Mercer. Now it seems like the graduate kicker is finally finding his rhythm.

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“Getting that first one is hard, and it took him a long time to get that first opportunity,” DeBoer said of Nicholson during his weekly radio show on Wednesday night. “It isn’t his fault. We were just scoring touchdowns and the opportunities didn’t present themselves the same way.

“He has been just steady since Day 1. We see him every day in practice. I think he’s getting more and more comfortable in our stadium in particular.”

DeBoer called the two kicks Nicholson made a Missouri “critical to Alabama’s 34-0 win over the Tigers. The first of which came from a season-long 47 yards out as the kicker helped the Tide put points on the board to cap off the game’s opening possession. From there, Nicholson helped a struggling Alabama offense get some momentum by hitting a 39-yarder to put the Tide up 6-0 late in the second quarter.

“Thought [the 47-yarder] was a big kick for us right there to get three points on the board,” DeBoer said. “And then he came back and did it again.”

While kicking isn’t DeBoer’s expertise, he said he still makes an effort to monitor his kicker’s reps during practice in order to get a good feel of what affects them and what went wrong during misses.

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“A kicker might miss a kick in practice, and if you really weren’t paying attention, you might just think it was him,” DeBoer explained. “Well, it might have been the snap or the hold or something else. There’s other moving parts to that part. It might not solely fall on the kicker missing in practice, and you can quickly some thoughts about, ‘Well, he’s not in his groove right now,’ when really there were other factors that played a role in it.”

As for Nicholson, DeBoer believes he’s finally found his rhythm and should be able to return to his award-winning form to close out the season.

“He’s mentally strong,” DeBoer said. “He’s got a lot that he’s done in the past that he goes back to that gives him the confidence he has. You still got a new place and you gotta kind of reprove yourself. He’s done a good job of doing that.”

Last season, Nicholson made 27 of 28 field-goal attempts and 35 of 37 extra-point tries. That included an NCAA-record streak of 25 straight made field goals. Through 10 games at Alabama, he is 5 of 7 on field goals and has made all 48 of his extra-point tries.



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Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's win over Illinois

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Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama's win over Illinois


Everything Nate Oats said after Alabama’s win over Illinois

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Alabama coach Nate Oats spoke to reporters after the Crimson Tide’s 100-87 win over No. 25 Illinois on Wednesday. No. 8 Alabama bounced back from a loss to Purdue in strong fashion, taking down its first Power Five opponent of the season and gaining some momentum ahead of a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Players Era Festival tournament.

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Here’s everything Oats said after the game.

Opening statement

“That’s a big win. Illinois is good. They’re talented. Got multiple guys that are gonna end up playing in the NBA. They’ve got length everywhere. They beat us on the boards, so we’ve got to get significantly better on the glass. But I thought our guys did a much better job defensively. We had a few things we had to get cleaned up, and I thought we played pretty hard. I thought we had a group in there to close the game out that played pretty well on defense and got to the rim on offense.

“There’s lots of positives. We shot the ball well from some guys. I think Grant got his confidence going, obviously, early. Labaron has been playing really hard, almost had a triple-double with 16, nine and seven. I think the ball moved a lot better. Twenty-three assists to only seven turnovers was big. So there’s a lot of positives, but a lot of stuff to improve on still.”

On Mark Sears being held scoreless, sitting the final 11:27

“He was great on the bench. He was struggling. There’s a lot of pressure on him, obviously, being a home-state kid that came back. He’s the preseason player of the year, and he’s trying to do well. Teams are gearing their defense toward him. He had some good looks tonight; they just didn’t go. I took him out to kind of let him get his head together a little bit, and I tried to put him back in and he just said, ‘Look, they’re playing well.’ “I’ll be honest with you, it’s similar to what Herb Jones has done before. We’ve had some really good players here that have just kind of been unselfish enough and want to win bad enough to just say, ‘Hey, let the guys go. They’re playing really well. Leave them in.’ So that’s what I did. I tried to put him back in the middle of that 11 minutes, but he said leave these guys. They were playing pretty well. He was right, so we left them in, and they went on a run and won it. I’m sure he’ll bounce back against Houston.”

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On Alabama’s bench

“Obviously, Holloway shooting it like he did helps a lot with the bench. Derrion, Aiden Sherrell kind of showed what they’re capable of. They’re starting to both get a little more comfortable. Dioubate threw in another three for us, and I think Jarin’s got a huge jump he can still make this year. We’re deep. Everybody knew we were deep. We needed the bench tonight with how Mark maybe struggled shooting it a little bit. Holloway came in and helped us out a little bit. So I thought it was big. I think our bench will probably give us pretty good production most of the year because there’s going to be quite a few guys that would be starting at most places coming off the bench, so we’ll get pretty good bench production most of the year.”

On Clifford Omoruyi avoiding foul trouble doing forward

“He picks up some silly ones where he gets out of position and kind of comes in late. So we gotta keep working with him on some of that. Him being in a drop like we’ve got him in, he didn’t really play it like that at Rutgers. So he’s just got to continue to get better. I thought we’ve seen him get better and better in the drop. I think when Grant went to the five and kind of got in the drop, he had a blocked shot. I think he’s done a little more, so you can see he’s a little more experienced with it. So we just got to keep working with him on that and then keep working. But like you said, I mean, he was plus-14 when he was in the game, played 15 minutes. We were plus-14 with them in there. So we gotta try to keep him out of foul trouble so we can keep him in the game a little bit longer.”

On responding from the Purdue loss

“It was big. We needed to play against a high-major team, a good one, a top-25 team and be able to get a win. And I didn’t even think we played great in a lot of areas. I mean, you look at the offensive rebounds we gave up. We didn’t shoot it particularly well from some of our better shooters, and we were still able to score 100 points. We did take care of the ball a lot better, and I thought our defense improved.

“So I think we need to continue to see little things improve and do well and just keep building on it because Houston’s obviously really tough, really good. Giving up 14 O boards – and Illinois’ very good. They’ve got length everywhere. They go to the O boards. They’re one of the better rebounding teams in the country. But they’re not at the same level as Houston’s going to be on the offensive glass. So we’re going to really pick up on our defensive rebounding. Purdue kind of got to us there, Illinois got to us. So we’re going to have to make a huge point of emphasis on that going forward.”

On if he’s surprised at Labaron Philos’s progress

“From what I thought when you go back to last spring when he opened his recruitment up and we took him, yes, I’m surprised from then. But if you ask me after the summer, after watching what he did in June, July, August, he came in and established himself as one of the best guards in the program right out of the gate in the month of June. So I think he came in competing. I mean, he had the right mindset coming in, though.

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“Like when he opened his recruitment up, he kind of made the point, I think one of the statements might have been, if I’m not going to play much – because Kansas took a lot of transfer guards when he signed – if I’m not going to play much, I’d rather be home in Alabama at Alabama if I’m not going to play much. I said, ‘Look, just come in and work hard. We’ll see what you can earn.’ So he kind of just came in expecting nothing, had to earn everything, and when you feel like you gotta earn everything, that’s when I think you start playing your best.

“It’s why we don’t ever promise anybody minutes, starting spots, anything around here. I think you make everybody come in and earn it. And also, you get guys like Labaron that blossom. And he’s kind of earned from summer, fall practice. He’s one of our hardest competitors in practice every day. He’s winning the blue-collar in practice. He won the Hard Hat tonight. He just makes a bunch of tough plays and just loses himself in the game. I don’t think he’s worried about how many points he scores, about how many times he touches it, how many minutes he’s played. Just if he’s in, he’s playing hard, playing the right way, and it shows.”

On Aden Holloway’s contributions

“We didn’t play fast enough against Purdue. One of the clips that we did play fast enough was him. He got downhill, scored a layup. We just said we want to keep the pace going. I think it’s easier to play fast when you got three of those four guards in. I thought he pushed the pace tonight. He’s super skilled. I mean, he’s as good a shooter as I’ve ever coached. So the fact that he went 3-of-4 from three is not really that shocking. I’d venture to say he’s gonna have plenty other games where he goes 3-of-4, 4-of-5, 5-of-6. Who knows. He can shoot it, and his pace is good. His skill level is high. He’s got a good finishing package in the lane. He’s good. I don’t know that I would say I envisioned this because – we knew he was really good coming out of high school. I think maybe sometimes it takes a little bit to adjust in college or whatever. He definitely had some good games at Auburn, but we thought he could be more like what he was coming out of high school, and I think that’s what you saw tonight.”

On responding to Illinois’ runs

“I think they cut it to eight at one point, if I remember right. I think maybe we had a 14-point lead. I couldn’t remember. Did they cut it lower than that? I think maybe eight was where we got. We were up 18 at one point in the first half. I think we were up maybe 17 in the second half, if I remember right, at some point. They cut it to eight, and I think that’s when I called the timeout. I thought we came out of that timeout, played pretty well. I think we went on a 7-0 run after the timeout, and it started with some defense. We got some transition buckets off our defense, and then they made some tough shots. I thought we did a better job keeping them off – they ended up with 14 O boards. They had 13 with about 12 minutes to go in the game. We kept talking about making sure they didn’t get any O boards. They got the one there late, I think when Riley got it, if I remember right. But other than that, I thought we did a better job keeping them off the glass. And they’re gonna make some tough shots.

“Sometimes basketball is a little bit of a game of runs, but you gotta make them keep taking tough shots, don’t give up O boards, nothing easy. And then we just had to make sure we had some better shots on our end. We got to do a better job getting to the offensive boards and getting some easy looks, too.”

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On Aiden Sherrell’s performance

“I thought he was good. I mean, we want him to shoot the ball with confidence. We finally got him to drop a three. We’ve seen him shoot well in practice, I thought he had a nice lob he caught. He played pretty physical and got some rebounds. A lot more like what we thought we’d have got, and I got him more minutes. So I thought he deserved more minutes. I thought I should have played him more at Purdue, to be honest with you. But he played a lot better for us tonight. For him to get plus-eight in his nine minutes was pretty good.”



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Alabama

13-year-old killed, 3 other teens injured in north Alabama after car hits tree stump, sign, fence

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13-year-old killed, 3 other teens injured in north Alabama after car hits tree stump, sign, fence


A 13-year-old passenger was killed and three other teenagers were injured in a single-vehicle wreck Wednesday morning in north Alabama, authorities said.

The teen, who was not wearing a seat belt, was a passenger in a 2015 Nissan Altima that left the road and struck a tree stump, a sign post and then a fence around 7:45 a.m. Wednesday on Blessing Road near Arley Lacey Road, approximately two miles north of Boaz, in Marshall County, said Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Senior Trooper Brandon Bailey.

The driver of the Altima, only identified as an 18-year-old, was injured and taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Two other teenage passengers — a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old — were also injured and taken to a hospital. They were not wearing seat belts, Bailey said.

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Further information on the wreck was unavailable as state troopers continued to investigate the incident.



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