Eva’s Initiatives Round Up
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.
