In July 2024, President Karlo Benjamin Nisce calls me into his office and says four words that would consume the next seven months of my life.
“Let’s make this memorable.”
I smiled. I had no idea.
Seventeen months later, our coffee table book 40 Years: The Rotary Club of New Manila East 1984–2024 earned a Silver Anvil at the 61st Anvil Awards, making us the first Rotary club in Philippine history to win in this category, and only the second Rotary club to receive an Anvil in 61 year history of the award.
As Public Image Director during this unprecedented year, I'm often asked: How does a non-profit win an Anvil Award? The answer isn't what most organizations expect.
The Rotary Club of New Manila East was turning forty, a Ruby Year, and like most organizations marking a milestone, we faced the same quiet crisis: four decades of service scattered across crumbling folders, fading photographs, and the memories of men and women who were getting older. If we didn’t gather these stories now, they would simply disappear. Not dramatically. Just slowly, the way important things do when no one is paying attention.
President Karlo’s brief was deceptively simple: “Create something permanent. Something that stands alone.”
We assembled a small team. Community Service Director Dave Buenviaje, who refused to let us write anything we couldn’t prove. Club Learning Facilitator Bong Cruz, who sat with thirty past presidents and pressed each one, gently, persistently, until the real story emerged. And one guiding principle that President Karlo set at the very beginning, the line we tested every decision against:
“If we wouldn’t want to read it in five years, we shouldn’t write it today.”
We didn’t start with the story we wanted to tell. We started with the truth, and let the story find us.
Eighty projects. Twenty thousand beneficiaries. Forty years of service across health, education, environment, and community development, documented, verified, sourced. No inflated claims. No vague language about “community impact.” Real numbers with real names behind them.
When we wanted to soften language around a difficult chapter in the club’s history, President Karlo ended the debate in one sentence: “If we’re afraid of the truth, we haven’t learned from it.”
That kind of clarity is rare. It makes excellence the only option.
On January 28, 2026, at the 61st Anvil Awards, the Philippines’ most prestigious recognition in public relations, they called our name. Silver Anvil. First Rotary club in Philippine history to win in our category.
I turned to look at President Karlo. He wasn’t beaming. He was nodding, quietly, the way a man nods when something he believed in has finally been confirmed by the world.
Later he told me what he was thinking in that moment. ‘We didn't build this to be recognized. We built it so no one who served would ever be forgotten.”
That sentence is the whole lesson.
We didn’t build this book to win an award. We built it because the doctor who received donated equipment deserved to be remembered. Because the student who graduated on a scholarship deserved a permanent record. Because forty years of quiet, consistent service, done without cameras, without press releases, without anyone watching, deserved more than a speech at an annual dinner.
The Anvil judges recognized that intention. They saw work built with rigor, not ambition. With discipline, not decoration. With truth, not positioning.
What began as a Coffee Table Book became the catalyst for remarkable achievement. Because of the book, now a permanent fixture in the Philippine National Library and the libraries of Ateneo, UP, and Xavier School, $103,274 in grants were secured, representing a 2,762% return on investment. Social media reach surged by 2,800%, and the work was recognized with 39 Excellence Awards.
Any organization, nonprofit, corporate, civic, can take something from this. Excellence is not a budget. It’s a decision. Rigor is not perfectionism. It’s respect for your work, your beneficiaries, and anyone who will one day read what you wrote and decide whether to believe it.
Set the right standard. Hold the line. Let the truth do the work.
For forty years, RCNME served quietly. We just made sure those forty years wouldn’t disappear.
The Anvil confirmed we got it right.
But the book already knew.