Established in 2008, “The Little Give” is Edelman Canada’s annual corporate social responsibility initiative that dedicates a little bit of seed money and a whole lot of time and energy to worthy non-profit organizations working to make a difference in the lives of children and youth.
On June 3-5, 2010, staff from Edelman Canada’s three offices in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto will devote time, energy and their public relations skills to a great cause. The Little Give is a local charitable initiative first launched by Edelman’s Vancouver office in 2008 which saw the office partner with four charities in the Vancouver area to help make a real difference in the lives of children and youth. The initiative was a success and so the decision was made to take it national. This year, staff in Edelman’s Toronto office will be divided into 10 teams, each partnered with a non-profit partner, which will receive two full days of our time and seed money donated by Edelman Canada. Each team will be tasked with leveraging both the corporate donation and the skills the team members each bring to the table, to the benefit of their partner organization. Teams will be evaluated on criteria including success in leveraging Edelman’s corporate contribution, bringing attention to the non-profit’s mission, and making a difference in the everyday lives of the children and youth served by the organization. Be sure to check back following the event for highlights, photos and stories from the teams!
This year’s partners are:
Team 1 – sketch
Team 2 – Eva’s Initiatives
Team 3 – TurnAround Couriers
Team 4 – Second Harvest
Team 5 – Youth Employment Services YES
Team 6 – Julliette’s Place
Team 7 – KUPE Arts Society
Team 8 – kids.now
Team 9 – Redwood Shelter
Team 10 – Project Canoe
Posted in General
The Huffington Post keeps The Little Give alive with an interview with Shane Dolgin this morning. Be sure to check out the comments. Thrilled about the audience reach – would love to say we’re responsible for this idea going global one day! A special shout-out to Richard Derham of Little Give partner TurnAround Couriers for making the introduction.
–Cheryl
On Thursday June 3rd, a group of eight Edelman employees gathered at a west-end Toronto Vietnamese restaurant to discuss their Little Give task. Unlike many of their colleagues, who had been asked by their not-for-profit partners to put their PR know-how to work, this group would flex their muscles, budget and stamina over the next 48 hours to revitalize the community courtyard at The Redwood – a home for abused women and their children.
As a crisis centre, The Redwood is on alert 24/7, with staff and residents welcoming new comers on a continuing basis. One of the most important aspects of any home such as this is not only providing women and children with a safe and secure place to reestablish their lives, but also a place that feels like a home and inspires a sense of belonging and community. Vital to engendering these feelings is The Redwood’s outdoor courtyard – a common area where residents can come together to speak to each other, rest and gather to eat and a where children can be children and play and create. It’s an area without fears or anxiety.
Although the courtyard is a cherished place, it does need constant maintenance and care. And given the regular, myriad challenges The Redwood staff face, caring for this space isn’t often the top priority. As a result, the vitality it once held has diminished over the years. Many of the children’s toys and much of the courtyard furniture are losing lustre from extended use; bricks and mortar are crumbling with age; and gardens that were once the centre of attention have either withered or over grown.
Team Orange Sunburst worked with TurnAround Couriers.
In 48 hours we produced new key messages to help Richard talk about his business, an outreach strategy to generate new sales leads and turn them into clients, and a batch of package stickers to raise the visibility of his business. And so much more.
We also helped Richard build out a robust LinkedIn profile that he will use to connect with decision-makers and influencers at key businesses. None of this was sexy stuff, in fact the activities taken alone were very much like our day jobs, but the pace, the quality of work and the dedication of the team made the experience exceptional.
Richard wasn’t the only one to benefit from the Little Give. I think everybody on Team Orange Sunburst was thrilled to dedicate their time to a single, worthwhile project. And I learned just how sharp, funny and amazing my Edelman colleagues can be. 48 hours is not a lot of time, but it’s enough to make some new friends and help a good cause put its best foot forward.
Take 8 committed Edelman employees, 48 hours of dedication, throw in a couple of pizza boxes and burritos in the mix, and what do you get?
The Masked Crusaders Rescuing Food, one fruit at a time! (aka the green = team).
From left to right: Mario Cordeiro, Carolyn Santillan, Aby Bueno, Gillian & Nancy from Second Harvest, Lana Meleniuk, Christine Lu, Katie Clark, Anya Kravets *missing Lindsay Williams
Little Give was an experience that none of us was prepared for. Adding to the fact that this was the first time that it was run in the Toronto office, everything was a complete surprise leading up to the announcement of the matching of the teams on the first day. The Green team (that’s us!) was paired with Second Harvest, a non-profit organization that rescues perishable foods and delivers it to approximately 250 social service programs in the Greater Toronto Area. We had the opportunity to meet with Gillian CS and Nancy Hall from Second Harvest for a few hours on the first day of the challenge for an overall company briefing where they left us with their ultimate ask, which was our challenge for the rest of the weekend. (more…)
48 hours, 7 bottles of energy drinks, 6 orders of Chinese food, 5 pizza boxes, 4 bags of crackers and several coffee cups later, Team Blue Rainbow emerged from our work space stronger, happier and grateful for the experience.
Our team had the opportunity to work with a fantastic organization, Eva’s Initiatives, as part of Edelman’s The Little Give. Eva’s offers shelter, program and services to help assist homeless and at-risk youth move off the streets permanently. Through a number of offerings, Eva’s offers both long-term and short-term solutions to help youth reach their potential.
Reading through the profiles and stories online of some of the youth who frequent Eva’s, we were all touched because we could relate to these stories. We all crossed paths with someone who could have been the very Ashley, Martine or Belinda we were reading about. This connection made us all even more determined to tackle our challenge and exceed their expectations.
You must be wondering what our task was. Our challenge was to help drive awareness, attendance and engagement at the organization’s marquee event, Taste Matters. A celebration of great wine and food from around the city, the event recognized many of Eva’s corporate sponsors for their generosity.
After meeting with our charity partner, Chad, we knew one of Eva’s long-term goals was to engage individual donors more often. The organization wanted to raise awareness among Torontonians about who they are and what they offered. We immediately say a great opportunity to build on the success of Taste Matters by focusing on engaging individual donors and encouraging them to donate and attend the event.
So began our epic brainstorming. For the next 24 hours, we discussed and explored many ideas. The passion and dedication was clear. You saw it in everyone’s eyes, in the way they spoke and even in the way they frantically wrote their brilliant ideas on the wall before they escaped. We all put our hearts into this project and came up with ideas on how to take Taste Matters to the next level.
Curious about what we came up with? Here’s a taste.
We created a communications plan – more like a communications tool-kit – for Eva’s that was easy to implement and made sense for the organization’s goals. Featuring a mix of suggested Facebook and Twitter updates, media materials, emails for their sponsor’s, a LinkedIn group, online charity fundraising tools and much more, it was a hefty little package that, we hope, will help Eva’s reach out to more Torontonians than ever before.
When we met with Chad again at the end of our 48-hours, he was blown away with the amount we had accomplished in such a short amount of time. The expression on his face alone made this whole experience worthwhile – you could literally see the excitement and how thankful he was to have our team help enhance the great work they were already doing and help to make this year’s Taste Matters yet another success.
The truth of the matter is that The Little Give gave us the opportunity to help a local charity using our skills. But more than that, it gave us the opportunity to take a moment and reflect on how lucky we are to have all that we do. We never have to worry about where our next meal will come from, where we’ll sleep tonight or stress over money. We’re lucky to have all that we do and The Little Give made us recognize just how blessed we really are.
“We need a new home. Ideally, a space we can call our own, and use how and when we need.”
A new home? This was a 48-hour initiative, and we weren’t real estate agents or homebuilders – and none of us knew Ty Pennington. But our charity partners were sincere – this was their greatest need, and they needed our help.
KUPE Arts Society is a Parkdale-based non-profit, which offers free music lessons to kids in the community. With inadequate music resources in local schools and limited extra-curricular afterschool programs for local kids, KUPE’s offering was one that played a huge role in the development of the community kids who took part. But working out of cramped conditions and around inflexible schedules at the local community centre was stunting their potential growth.
Despite the big ask, KUPE wasn’t looking for a big fix. Listening to Jarel and Alicia, our contacts at KUPE, it was obvious the community was integral to their success as an organization. We knew to help KUPE find a new home, we needed to have the community engaged.
So, the noteXnote campaign was born. Just like music unfolds note by note, we knew it was going to take a lot of small steps to develop a community micro-financing program that would both reflect the personality of KUPE and be effective in reaching their goals. The noteXnote campaign took us to three distinct places:
Team Electric Pineapple path to Little Give domination had humble roots.
First off, Electric Pineapple’s team roster was STACKED — all type-A, go-getter personalities full of solid ideas and the crazy drive to follow through on them. It was a great snapshot of cross-practice integration: there were one or two people from almost every practice on our team, which was a nice change, considering how little some of us see each other. (I blame the wonky office set up – when is moving day again?)
Day 1 – after we got the lowdown on Sketch’s high-priority needs from Sketch reps Dale and Tom – was dedicated to wallpapering our little brainstorming room with every conceivable concept we could come up with. We collectively decided that building an action plan around Sketch’s fledgling silkscreening business, PressXPress, would be the best route to go. They had the business – they just needed 1) the customers and 2) the way to get the word out. A website and media and business plans it was!
Coming in bright and early on Day 2, we set out to spend the morning conducting our master plan to get PressXPress off the ground. With the combined expertise of all of our practices and areas of specialization, we were sure we could get a plan together – we just had to figure out how. It was a challenge, for sure, but the delegating of tasks went easily enough thanks to everyone’s individual strengths.
At the end of a hilarious, focused, and inspirational 48 hours, team Burgundy SUPERstars delivered youth mentorship non-profit kids.now a manageable social media strategy with supporting content calendar, influencer list, and online tool kit. Our team took our partner’s ask and ran with it.
Our team, consisting of me (Laura Muirhead), Jennifer Cartwright, Laura Espinoza, Amanda Brewer, Diana Dobrusevski, Inna Prissiajniouk, Anna Gordon, Rohini Mukherji, and everyone’s favourite funny man, James Bigg, got down to business on Thursday night and locked down our goal, strategy and approach by dinnertime! On Friday, amid dressing up in costume and unleashing scare tactics toward the other teams, we brainstormed tactics for our partner’s existing social media profiles. We finally landed upon a four-point strategy that would enhance their social media presence, allow for better online integration, put an emphasis on dynamic content, and leverage their extensive list of influencer connections – all the while, bringing these points together so that kids.now could better amplify their upcoming programming.
Friday night through to Saturday, our team focused efforts on our judges’ presentation, which we decided to host on Prezi. Check it out below!
Words cannot express the spirit, compassion, and drive that came out of our fantastic team! For a truly cross-practice, cross-level team, we worked together with ease and ultimately delivered our partner organization the best of our collective abilities. We are all proud to have been participants in Edelman Toronto’s inaugural Little Give, and can’t wait to do it again next year!
Team Awesomesauce, who worked tirelessly to help find KUPE Arts Society a new home. Congratulations to captain Cynthia, together with teammates Robyn, Sara, Yomi, Rachel S., Steph, Rachel H., and Rosalind.
The judges were particularly impressed with how the team took a Parkdale approach to a Parkdale challenge.
Congratulations to you all. We’re very proud of you, as you should be of yourselves.
–Cheryl
