Pro Bono Project: A Big Success

by Sherry Smith

The PNW chapter has just completed its first pro bono project. Nancy Radius, a Eugene indexer, received high praise from the Eugene Relief Nursery for her work on their fundraising cookbook.

Julie Budge, a volunteer at the nursery, presented an award of appreciation at the September chapter meeting in Eugene and offered the following praises for Nancy's work:

"Nancy's indexing skill and her amazing calm in the face of our admitted chaos were exceedingly important qualities in the process of creating this fundraising cookbook for the Relief Nursery.

"In addition, since she was such a key figure in discovering errors that we missed the first eight times we edited the book, we have included her name at the front of the book as one of the editors. When we looked for errors to correct in the index, we found none-she even had the proper two dots over 'aiöli.' The typesetter took her file and simply dropped the index into the book's file; paste-up was that easy.

"Nancy Radius is amazing, and we are deeply grateful to the Pacific Northwest chapter of ASI for creating their pro bono program."

The purpose of the pro bono program is to match qualified beginning indexers with nonprofit organizations that need an index. The benefits of these projects include the following: professional indexing has a higher profile in the Pacific Northwest; the PNW chapter is a more visible organization that contributes to the community; beginning indexers have an opportunity to build a resume and to acquire a professional identity; experienced indexers have an opportunity to offer their expertise in a short-term mentoring situation; and nonprofit organizations receive quality indexes.