Annual Achievements

Celebrate the creativity, innovation, and impact of our industry with the Greeting Card Association’s Annual Achievements. As a volunteer run organization, it’s important to celebrate everything we’ve accomplished year over year. This page highlights our achievements that shaped the past year; from award winners to key milestones, explore how our community continues to inspire connection and set the standard for what’s next.

2025:

• *Noted: The Greeting Card Expo – Formed a partnership with ANDMORE and hosted *Noted: The Greeting Card Expo with 50 exhibitors in partnership with the Las Vegas Summer Market in July 2025. 
• Louie Awards
  • Celebrated 159 finalists and 53 winners at the 36th Annual Louie Awards held in conjunction with *Noted in July 2025. 
  • Brought back the Judges Award for Excellence during the Louie Awards. 
• Annual Conference – Held our Annual Conference in Detroit, Michigan, hosted by Avanti Press, where we welcomed almost 100 greeting card industry members.
• Membership – Welcomed 59 new members into our community. 
• Education – Hosted 4 quarterly webinars and added them to our Resource Center for further reach.
• Marketing 
  • Increased Instagram views 46.8% with a total of 40.4K views for the year and increased followers by 845. 
  • Increased Facebook followers by 7.2% and total views reached over 51.2K. 
• Staffing Updates 
  • Welcomed Carlos Llanso as Executive Director, after almost 20 years of volunteer service on the Board and various committees. 
  • Introduced Cassy Hemmen as Membership Specialist and Marisa Pinette as Digital Marketing Specialist.
  • Added Ashley Montoya as Director of Governance and Strategy. 

2024:

• *Noted: The Greeting Card Expo – Hosted *Noted in conjunction with Gifted, the Creative Home and Gift Expo in San Francisco in April 2025, increasing exhibitor participation by 25%.
• Louie Awards
  • Increased entries by 20.84% from 2023 and increased number of judges by 49% from 2023. 
  • Added additional judging hub in Cleveland, OH at the American Greetings HQ. 
  • Added 5 new categories to celebrate and highlight diversity and created the 5 Maker of Note awards. 
  • Hosted formal judge training for the first time.
  • Partnered with Faire for a dedicated Louie Winner page. 
• Annual Conference – Held our Annual Conference in person in Denver, CO, hosted by Leanin’ Tree.
• Membership 
  • Welcomed 61 new members into our community. 
  • Created and hosted monthly Coffee Chat meetings.
  • Expanded our GCA Community on Mighty Networks to welcome more connection.
• Education – Hosted 4 quarterly webinars and added them to our Resource Center for further reach.
• Operations  
  • Formed a new process for onboarding Committee Chairs including goal-setting to help with recruitment and training of volunteers.
  • Created a database housing all internal processes for GCA for ease of training new staff and updated our Operations Manual that includes all of our Standard Operating Procedures.
• Staffing Updates
  • Kori Sulewski was promoted to Deputy Director.