By Amanda Ponzar

One of the absolute best parts of my job is working with people who care about people! These are mostly CSR and community affairs employees at some of the biggest and best companies in the world. And although companies often get a bad rap, many of the social problems we face today are too big for nonprofits or government to handle alone -- it takes everyone, and we should recognize those corporations and their employees who step up to help. So last week, United Way announced the 2011 winners of our highest national awards:

• U.S. Bank -- leveraged unique expertise to improve financial stability
• Microsoft -- creatively maximized tech expertise and software for social good, focused on  improving education
• Procter & Gamble -- capitalized on brands and resources to improve children's lives and strengthen communities around the world
• Bank of America -- invested people resources and millions of dollars to improve financial stability
• Dominion Resources -- used its resources and energy to improve communities, especially around education

It's satisfying to see friends win an award for their day-in, day-out efforts to raise money, increase volunteerism, get people excited and make a measurable impact around education, income/financial stability and health issues -- all to improve lives and communities. It can be a thankless job.

The fun part is getting the word out: press releases, media pitching, ads, social media, website, blog, newsletter articles, videos, signage, etc., etc.. Want to help? Send a tweet: [email protected]_unitedhonors #USBank #Microsoft #P&G #BofA & #Dominion 4 community support http://bit.ly/lcQLRf

Measuring the impact of it all? Not so fun. Ugh on Google Alerts, media monitoring/clipping, tracking social media hash tags and @ symbols and shortened URLs from bit.ly, plus reading bizarre blog posts (this one totally scrambled our press release into half nonsense claiming we awarded the "Moral fiber of America award" instead of "Spirit of America" and kept talking about "village service" instead of "community service" -- I shudder to even share the link and drive more traffic to it, but it's just so bad I can't help myself).

ANYWAY, if you know people who work at one of the winning companies (U.S. Bank, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Bank of America or Dominion), why not shoot them a quick email/text/nudge/whatever to say congrats and thank you for their community support?

(Photos: U.S. Bank CEO Richard Davis & United Way Worldwide President and CEO Brian Gallagher; Kevin Espirito from Microsoft; Times Square photo of our news on Reuters sign/video screen!)