The Michael Paul Wein Charitable Foundation

"Underpromise and Overdeliver"

lifetime achievement

Purpose of Award

We believe that volunteers should be compensated, not with money, but with gratitude, with respect, and with other non-monetary rewards.  We believe that in this town, those who have so much more than others, should give of their time, their abilities, and their experience, to others whose need is so great.  To compensate these givers with money would detract from the ability of each organization to do whatever their mission dictates. However, these organizations do require help from volunteers. 

This, then, is a different attempt to aid the local organizations in their recruitment and appropriate management of volunteers. Our Annual Recognition Award is intended to help compensate all of the volunteers of this city with the annual recognition for recent accomplishments by one of them, and our Lifetime Achievement Award  is intended to help compensate all of the volunteers of this city by periodically selecting one volunteer for his or her lifetime achievements.  Finally, our Acknowledgement of an Organization that  compensates its volunteers in an appropriate non-monetary manner is part of that goal.  We hope to inspire more potential volunteers to volunteer and the various organizations to greater appreciation of the volunteer's contributions.

How this all comes to pass:

We solicit recommendations from the community. Recommendations for the lifetime achievement award should to be emailed to us at our email address of mpwinsma@gmail.com and should include the nominee's name and contact information (email, telephone, etc.) as well as a narrative (as short or as long as the writer wishes) detailing whatever seems to be appropriate in describing the lifetime work of the nominee.

Recommendations for the annual recognition award person as well as for acknowledgement of a specific organization that handles volunteers well should also be sent us. In these instances, the description of the work of the person and/or organization should be confined to just the recent past.

The Trustees of the Foundation will review the recommendations and select all designees (the one Lifetime Achievement Award winner will be selected annually from the entries we receive, the "recognized volunteers" will be selected periodically from entries we receive, and the "acknowledged organization" will be selected periodically from entries we receive). Although the Trustees deliberations will not be made public, their final selections will be announced as soon as practical, most probably around May or June of each year.

Record of Persons named to receive the Stirling Dickinson Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteerism in San Miguel de Allende:

Original announcement of the Lifetime Achievement Award for volunteer work in San Miguel de Allende

The Michael Paul Wein Charitable Foundation, Inc, would like to announce an award of US$1,000 to an individual selected periodically for Lifetime Achievement in volunteering their services to the San Miguel community. The first award will be presented this year, prior to June 30th.

The purpose of the award, in addition to recognizing the person's lifetime achievements in this capacity, is to bolster the concept of the volunteer work ethic in the entire community, both as to organizations who use volunteers and to the volunteers themselves. The ceremony that will announce this award will also devote part of its program to the recognition of "the current work of other volunteers" and to the organizations that recruit and use them most effectively.

And, in keeping with the concept of non-monetary volunteer work, the us$1,000 award will be paid to any eligible (see note 1 below) organization chosen by the recipient, and not to the recipient him or herself. A suitable permanent record on the MPWCF website will commemorate all awardees.

While the MPWCF trustees will select the recipients of all awards, the entire community is now being consulted for the names and deeds of prospective candidates. Therefore, this notice to the community is also a solicitation for nominees. For consideration for the Lifetime Achievement Award, please list your nominee's name, and send a narrative of their work, in as much detail as you feel appropriate, to the MPWCF at the email address of mpwinsma@gmail.com

Nominations are also now being solicited for an annual recognition award of an individual as well as another award for acknowledgement of a specific organization that handles volunteers well. These, too, should be sent to mpwinsma@gmail.com in these instances, the description of the work of the person and/or organization should be confined to just the recent past. These latter two awards are for recognition only and do not carry the same monetary award as does the Lifetime Achievement Award.

In keeping with the purpose of the Lifetime Achievement Award and the purpose of its issuance, the award will be named after San Miguel's foremost and possibly first volunteer, and will be called The Stirling Dickinson Lifetime Achievement Award.

note 1 - the only criteria for eligibility that an organization must meet is listed on our web-page Eligibility under the heading "Each new grantee organization MUST:"  Due to legal considerations described more fully on that page, we must insist that  the first 4 criteria be met; no other criteria on that page must necessarily be met.

This is one of only a few pages that may be modified after the Founder's disability, incapacitation, or death.  For more information, see subsequent changes.