In The News

McElwain Wins Prestigious Women in Business Achievement Award

CHARLOTTE, NC (June 9, 2010) –Meg McElwain, President  of Magnolia Marketing (www.magnoliamarketing.com)  has been selected as a recipient of this year’s “Women in Business Achievement Award.”  Charlotte winners will be honored at the annual Women in Business Luncheon on Wednesday, June 23 at the Charlotte Convention Center. 

“This honor is completely overwhelming,” says McElwain.  “When I came to Charlotte eleven years ago as a young college graduate, I could not have imagined this day.  I was taught by my family at an early age about the importance of working hard and giving back to your community.  Charlotte has been very good to me!”

McElwain founded Charlotte-based Magnolia Marketing in 2003.  Since that time, Magnolia Marketing has served many of the premier businesses and non-profit organizations in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region.  Even during the recent economic downturn, Magnolia Marketing’s client base has experienced a 43% growth over the past 12 months. 

McElwain graduated from Leadership Charlotte in 2008, where she served as a co-chair for her Leadership Charlotte Service Project Team and was voted Most Valuable Team member by her peers.  She is on the Board of Directors for the Trail of History, a group whose mission is to recapture and preserve the significance of key people who contributed to the history, growth, and development of Mecklenburg County by erecting larger-than-life representative statues along the urban section of the Little Sugar Creek Greenway.  She is fourth generation Rotarian and is an active member of The Rotary Club of Charlotte, one of our region’s oldest and largest professional organizations.  McElwain currently serves on several committees including the Rotary district marketing committee.  She is President of the Ole Miss Alumni Association Charlotte Club and is a member of Myers Park Methodist Church.

McElwain received a degree in Radio and Television from The University of Mississippi in 1998.  That same year she moved to Charlotte and began a career in sales and marketing.  In 2005, the Charlotte Jaycees named her one of 10 Outstanding Young Charlotteans for her civic and professional work.  She has served on numerous non-profit boards and been involved with many community events and organizations. Read Full Profile on Meg McElwain

First Lakewood Day turns out wet but productive

Melinda Johnston

Special Correspondant

It wasn't quite the celebration they had planned, but Lakewood residents and volunteers from REI, Myers Park Baptist Church and Leadership Charlotte made the best of a wet situation.

On March 29, organizers planned the first Lakewood Day. The morning was dedicated to neighborhood beautification, followed by an afternoon of fun for all ages. That was when the rains came.

Around 9 a.m., about 50 volunteers fanned out through the neighborhood, which sits two miles northwest of uptown between Interstate 85, Odum Avenue, Norwood Drive and Rozzelles Ferry Road. Volunteers got in 90 minutes of trash collection before the downpour started.

Folks then gathered at the Lakewood Park shelter for lasagna provided by Harris Teeter.

Because of the wet weather, the afternoon activities were canceled, but organizers and residents say the day was still a success with 120 bags of trash collected.

Cleanup volunteer and Lakewood resident Delores Miller said the effort was greatly appreciated by residents who are working hard to make their community a better place to live.

"People in the neighborhood really appreciated the cleanup efforts," she said. "Since I've moved here, this neighborhood has really come up a lot. The community policing is very effective, and they've built some nice homes around here. We're working on getting a grocery store and a community center."

Miller and Leadership Charlotte class member Cherise Johnson walked around with a half dozen neighborhood youth picking up trash from yards and streets.

"Those kids worked so hard, and they were determined to pick up every cigarette butt and gum wrapper they saw," said Johnson. "We cleaned for about an hour and probably picked up about 15 bags of trash. We were able to make a big impact in just a little amount of time."

Meg McElwain, a Leadership Charlotte class member who helped organize the event, says the service project team met with Lakewood neighborhood leaders to see what they could do to help the community.

They determined that the community needed help building a sense of community and community pride. The day's activities were designed to fulfill both those needs.

Making Things Happen

Meg McElwain

Ole Miss E-Newsletter Nov. 2007
Jane Harrison Fisher

Read the original newsletter here.

Meg McElwain (BA 01) believed in herself when she ventured into a marketing career. With roots deep in Mississippi and after graduating from Ole Miss with a degree in Radio and Television, McElwain moved to Charlotte, N.C., and started her professional career. Her visions and professional relationships evolved into owner of Magnolia Marketing.

A native of Grenada, McElwain fell in love with Charlotte because she saw a beautiful, vibrant, clean, southern city with a healthy community that had a booming economy. She literally landed in Charlotte after visiting there with a friend that was moving for graduate school. McElwain started her career in sales in Charlotte and after a year she went to work for a small marketing firm. In 2003, she opened Magnolia Marketing.

"I feel like I have good ideas and I believe community-based marketing is so important and I felt that is something that I was lacking in that environment," said McElwain. "I felt like it was time to open Magnolia Marketing".

Working from home in her dining room, McElwain started her company and used contract labor when she needed help. She was on her own when it came to the business decisions. Still a home-based business today, McElwain now has three other employees.

"Magnolia Marketing is a full-service marketing, advertising and professional communications firm," said McElwain. “The majority of our clients are non-profit organizations that are deeply rooted in the Charlotte area. I have really found that is a good area to focus in. It is a group that we feel we can really make a difference with."

McElwain is from a family of entrepreneurs and business owners, so growing up in that environment she knew if she believed in herself that she could do it. She felt she had something to offer to the business community and the non-profit community in Charlotte.

"Charlotte is a growing community but the people here are like no other, only second to Mississippi,” said McElwain. “In order to be a community leader, all you have to say is you want to be involved, and they will reach out to you and help. I have been extremely fortunate to make contacts through projects that have supported me in my projects and as a business owner. I am not alone in that because it is the vibe of the city."

In all businesses there are challenges, even home-based businesses. McElwain says finding balance between family and work is one of her biggest challenges as a business owner.

"As a small business, one that started from the ground floor, I have watched the business grow slowly but surely and sometimes the business does not grow fast enough,” said McElwain. “Especially for someone like me. I am a doer, I am visionary, I see it and I want it right then. The great thing about the slow growth is it is consistent. There have not been a lot of ups and downs, it has been slowly growing which is a good thing for me."

When looking back at her time at Ole Miss, her fondest memories are the times that she attended Ole Miss events and the Grove. That is why she chose Ole Miss.

McElwain said, "In my family, I did not know there was another choice. Ole Miss was where you went to get your education, and I hope my children will carry on that tradition."

McElwain contributes her success to having great mentors. Her grandfather, her mother and her father were all incredible mentors. She has leaned on them and drawn on experiences with them to make a lot of decisions for business in general. They were the people that influenced her growing up.

"I also think I have a little bit of fire in me," she said. "I don’t give up easily."

McElwain and her husband, Frank Turner, currently reside in Charlotte, N.C. McElwain is the daughter of the late Maryhardy Bays McElwain (BAE 63, MLS 81) and the late Joe Mitch McElwain (BA 63). McElwain is an active member of the Charlotte area Ole Miss Alumni Club.

Leadership Charlotte

Charlotte Observer
Jeff Elder

Leadership Charlotte, the program that breeds community leaders like rabbits, holds an open house Jan. 10 at Queens U. The event is open to the first 250 people who register at www.leadershipcharlotte.org. This program plucks the best and brightest -- this year attorney Angie Vincent, marketer Meg McElwain (the Mississippi Magnolia), and NASCAR Renaissance man Spencer Lueders, among many others.

Insider columnist Jeff Elder is always looking for gossip about Charlotte's business community -- know about a restaurant opening or closing, a new store coming to town, or just a hot tip? E-mail Jeff at jelder@charlotteobserver.com.

www.charlotte.com, Scene and Heard,   April 13, 2008

Alicia Liesmaki (from left), Meg McElwain and Judge Todd Owens at Alexander Youth Network’s annual fundraising luncheon April 1 at the Westin hotel. More than 1,100 attended the event, which raised $620,000 in gifts and pledges to fund children's mental health services in the area. Alexander Youth Network is one of North Carolina's leading providers of children's behavioral healthcare, serving nearly 1,200 children a year from throughout the state.

Gaston College campaigns for bond

School hopes to use money for renovation, construction BY AMANDA MILLARD Gazette Staff Reporter

DALLAS – With $24.9 million in bond money, Gaston College could renovate the East Campus in Belmont and construct two new buildings on the Dallas Campus.
But first it needs to garner voter support on Nov. 7 for the request.
To do that, the college needs to reach as many people as possible, said Meg McElwain of Magnolia Marketing in Charlotte, one of the marketing firms hired to help the college get its message out.
“We want to represent this bond just like a candidate in this campaign,” McElwain said at a recent meeting of the bond referendum steering committee. “Any chance we get to talk about this bond, we want it.”

Much of the campaign will focus on getting Gaston College students to vote. Gaston College served about 29,000 students last year, said board of trustees member Randy Vinson.
“If we can get these students to the polls, it will make all the difference,” McElwain said.
State law limits what community colleges can do to bring attention to a bond referendum.
Taxpayer funds cannot be used to lobby people to vote for the bond referendum. College computers, printers, e-mail, faxes and mailing supplies cannot be used to ask people to vote for the bonds. College funds can’t be used to distribute materials that ask for people to vote for the bonds.
Instead, community colleges can educate others about facility needs, projects to be funded and how passing the bonds would help the college.
Gaston College’s board of trustees requested $41,000 from the Gaston College Foundation to use to promote the bond referendum Monday. The Foundation’s executive council met Thursday and approved the requested funds, said Sylvia Bajorek, executive director. The full board will meet Oct. 4 and will be asked to ratify that decision.
Passing the bond will be essential to the future growth of the college, Vinson said.
“More and more students are coming to Gaston to get their education. This campus makes college affordable for working families in this county,” Vinson said. “But it is imperative that we pass this bond package in November.”

Caps, gowns on grads? No. But spandex? Oh, why not?

Charlotte Observer
Jeff Elder

So there they were, a full deck of newly minted kings and queens -- 52 of Charlotte's finest young powerbrokers, graduating from the Leadership Charlotte program. Among them: Debbie Aguiar-Velez, prez of Sistemas Corp., Trevor Beauford, a minister at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, the Mississippi magnolia, marketer Meg McElwain.

Just as they were being feted and petted Wednesday on the bucolic grounds of Queens University of Charlotte, a young ruffian zoomed up on his racing bike and crashed the party. It was Spencer Lueders, founder of the 24 Hours of Booty fundraiser, and a member of the class. I never wore spandex to a graduation ceremony. But that's a good thing.

Social media cast wide net for charity

Charlotte Observer
Jeff Elder

The next time someone dismisses social media as a bunch of people describing what they had for lunch, remember these scenes:

A Charlotte Country Day alum tweets from Tanzania about a fire at an orphanage, and Charlotteans help raise thousands of dollars within a few days.

Donors are able to give more to Goodwill Industries of the Southern Piedmont after connecting on Facebook about how to drop off items.

Lupus sufferers discuss living with the disease on the Facebook page of the Charlotte branch of the Lupus Foundation Of America.

As part of Charlotte Mission Possible, in which citizens submitted ideas to help charities raise funds and increase awareness, the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter was suggested by several people. And while an increasing number of Charlotte nonprofits say social media have helped them stay connected with their communities during the recession, the results are not always tangible.

The charities that often see concrete reactions are those that publicize specific events or needs, instead of sending out general articles.

For example, Meghann Gunderman, 26, is a Country Day grad and founder of the Foundation for Tomorrow, which partners with companies like Charlotte's GITA Sporting Goods, Merrill Lynch and Myers Park High School to fund education for African orphans. When a fire left dozens of kids living without power last year, she said, "I just did a campaign on Twitter, and it just blew up." Thanks to donations from Charlotte and elsewhere, "We raised thousands of dollars in days."

Gunderman is also using Twitter to promote a gala Friday night in SouthEnd and a 400-mile bicycle ride in Africa to benefit the Foundation for Tomorrow.

Other good results can come when the group sees the network as a way to interact with its donors or users.

At Goodwill, Bo Hussey, vice president of marketing and communications, says, "The timing of the recession was probably perfect for this tool to come along." Hussey and an employee share the social media duties to answer donors questions about how to bring in items for drop-off, bringing in more donations and cutting down on bureaucracy in the store. Goodwill also posts news articles about Goodwill online, and tweets out sales, which brings in more customers.

Christine John, who uses Facebook and Twitter for the Lupus Foundation Of America branch in Charlotte, says, "We thought our primary objective was to encourage fund-raising," but to her surprise, she discovered a community gathering around her organization's Facebook page from 6 to 9 in the evening to discuss living with Lupus. "We want to be there to find out what they're saying about the disease," John says.

To find these kinds of results, Charlotte nonprofits are plunging in, experimenting, and reaching out for help. At an August event at Charlotte's Microsoft campus, more than 140 nonprofits leaders packed a forum led by Npower, a nonprofit tech-consulting agency. The problem many needed help with? How to even get started on social media with a small staff. "The large majority of nonprofits are understaffed, and it takes time away from your normal operations to focus on social media and figure it out for your agency," says Meg McElwain, whose Magnolia Marketing has specialized in nonprofit marketing in Charlotte for years. She says that the long-term benefits should outweigh the short-term struggles a group has.

"Agencies need to entrust this to someone who's already doing it," says nonprofits Web strategist John Haydon, and that means trusting someone in the "35-and-under crowd." His blog is an online resource for nonprofits, packed with online social media tutorials. Another great resource for nonprofits is Beth Kanter's blog, How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media.

While it might be comforting to think a workshop or a few tips can address all your social media needs, the fact is, each organization needs to find its own unique place in the social media conversation. And that means taking part in a dialogue, not just trumpeting your organization, Haydon says. Some organizations think, "Great. We're going to just talk about us all the time." That's a mistake, he says. For nonprofits, the key is to tap into people's passion.

"People don't care about the nonprofit, they care about the cause."

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2009/11/11/1049005/social-media-cast-wide-net-for.html#ixzz0qNqUH2zy

An evening of bluegrass and barbecue celebration

Charlotte Observer
Scene & Heard

Charles Jonas (from left), Mary Claudia Belk Pilon, George Dewey, Molly Bourne and Meg McElwain hosted an evening of bluegrass and barbecue June 5 at the home of Claudia Belk. Guests met artist Chas Fagan and saw a model of his work “The Spirit of Mecklenburg” – a statue of Captain James Jack, a tavern owner in Mecklenburg County in 1775 who volunteered to deliver the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The statue will be dedicated in 2010 at the corner of Fourth Street and Kings Drive during the opening of Little Sugar Creek Greenway.

Party Tip

Charlotte Observer
Scene and Heard

“I’m no hothouse flower, so during a recent outdoor party I began to wilt. I was envious when I looked over and saw Meg McElwain of Magnolia Marketing looking cool and elegant as she created her own breeze with a beautiful hand fan. “When I was at Ole Miss I studied abroad in Spain and I bought it there,” she told me later. “I’m from Mississippi, where it’s hot as blazes, so I know how to use a fan.”

-Olivia Fortson