Holiday Party Gift-Wrapping Rodeo Wrap-Up

Office holiday parties are a fine opportunity to promote teamwork and togetherness. This year, we decided to take the camaraderie of our annual yuletide shindig to a new level – by mixing a charitable ingredient into the usual recipe of food and fun.

In the spirit of giving, we channeled our holiday cheer toward a toy drive for the Journey House of Milwaukee, an organization that provides education, employment, neighborhood revitalization and other programs on Milwaukee’s near south side.

We collected a variety of new, unused toys for kids served by Journey House. And to make sure we emphasized the “fun” pillar of our core values, we incorporated a wrapping contest (not be confused with “rapping contest” – maybe next year?).

We are proud to announce that this past Saturday, Santa himself handed out 25 presents worth almost $400 to children from the community from SH (among many others from the generous Milwaukee community).

Check out photos from the holiday festivities on our Facebook page.

Keeping in Mind What Really Matters

In the end, it’s about family, friends and community.

But how often do we reflect on these foundations in the midst of our busy days? Sometimes it takes a personal struggle to put it all in perspective.

Jay Williams talked about his own such journey this week at the annual meeting of the newly renamed Waukesha County Business Alliance.

Jay had a long, successful career in banking, most recently at the helm of The PrivateBank – Wisconsin. Then cancer blew in like a tornado, taking the life of both his father and son and threatening his own. Through this adversity, Jay saw what many would miss: an opportunity to reevaluate what’s most important in life. He thought a lot about what he wanted his legacy to be.

As a result, Jay is now devoting himself to something he’s long been passionate about: the Milwaukee community. Today, he’s president and CEO of the Milwaukee Public Museum, a vital and historic community institution. He’s applying his experience to advance a cultural asset that can benefit greatly from his financial and business management expertise.

Jay sets a fine example for many business leaders, who have so much to offer nonprofits like MPM. While not everyone can dedicate all their time to their favorite cause, every business can do its part.

Leaders can lead by example in their charity work, while providing opportunities wherever possible for their employees to do the same.

I believe we all do better work when we keep in mind why we’re doing that work in the first place. That’s why being a force for good makes good business sense. Ultimately, it truly is about family, friends and community. Thanks, Jay, for reminding us.

Txt to ‘Haiti’ to 90999: In Tragedy, a Fundraising Triumph

By now, you’ve probably heard that you can quickly, easily donate $10 to Haiti earthquake relief efforts by texting “Haiti” to 90999.

Just days after the disaster, the program already is an unprecedented success, with millions of people donating a total of more than $8 million (and rising) to the Red Cross.

Without the text-to-donate opportunity—and the phenomenal publicity it’s received via social media, blogs and traditional media—would the relief effort be so flush with funding, so immediately? Not likely. Text donors account for at least one-fifth of the Red Cross’ earthquake relief fundraising so far.

It’s a breakthrough—a timely, convenient, impactful way to participate and help people in such dire need. And, as MediaPost points out, the $10 texting effort has reached a younger generation of donors who might not otherwise take the time or feel like they have the money to contribute.

For so many nonprofit organizations, at a time when money is tight and the need to find new people to support and sustain their missions is greater than ever, the rise in mobile marketing represents an excellent opportunity to engage with younger audiences.

For example, mPower, a Milwaukee-based under-21 drug and alcohol crisis hotline, is reaching its target audience with a combination of text messaging, social media and traditional channels. A campaign encouraging teens to text mPower and sign up for mobile alerts—for a chance to win a Nintendo Wii—has been a great success.

It’s good to see charitable organizations putting these new technologies to effective use, and the Haiti “text to give” success bodes well for future initiatives.

Oh, and if you haven’t already done so, please consider taking a moment to give to the relief effort. If texting isn’t your thing, here are some other ways to donate.

Well City, Let’s Go!

If a committee I’ve recently joined is successful, here’s something you’ll be hearing a lot more about: Milwaukee’s Well City initiative. For now, I’ll just start with this post.

The Greater Milwaukee Committee and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce have come together to spearhead an initiative that could earn Milwaukee boasting rights as one of the healthiest cities in America. Right now we’re designing a marketing program that makes sure the initiative gains momentum.

Well City USA is a program developed by the Wellness Councils of America (WELCOA), an organization dedicated to helping businesses lower health care costs by cutting the demand for health care services. We are trying to help Milwaukee join the nine cities nationwide that have received the Well City designation and the six cities with projects under way. We’ve already achieved the prerequisite that at least 20 companies covering a combined minimum of 52,000 employees must commit to meeting WELCOA’s Well Workplace certification criteria. We’re now awaiting approval on the recently submitted application for Milwaukee to enter Well City’s three-year certification period.

So why is all this worthwhile? We believe it’s essential not just for the sake of encouraging us all to live healthier lives (although that’s pretty worthy in itself), but for the economic health of the entire Milwaukee region.

For one thing, I’m sure you’re familiar with Milwaukee’s comparatively high health care costs. Reducing demand on the health care system through wellness programs is one way to lower those costs. In addition, healthier people make more productive employees. Finally, the Well City designation could do wonders for marketing our region and our companies—helping us all to recruit the healthy, talented and productive workers we need.

But first, businesses of all sizes have to get on board to make Well City happen in our town. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to act now by getting your company to commit to being a Well Workplace.

WELCOA is making it easy. It’s not that expensive. And the ROI can benefit your company, your people and our region as a whole.

Searching for a Cause

Last week, I received an email from someone I volunteer with at a local non-profit. Turns out our charity has been registered with a new free-search engine called GoodSearch. Powered by Yahoo, GoodSearch donates an average of $.01 to the charity of your choice for every search you make.

You can either associate your search with your charity --- there is minimal setup that goes into it if you are the first to register a particular nonprofit --- or you can choose the “Charity of the day” in the upper-left corner of the site.

After learning about this new concept, I have a few observations: first – another great Web 2.0 idea!; second – how can I get more people to use it?; and third – what a simple, engaging way to apply the principles of cause marketing. (See also Motorola’s (Product) Red campaign.)

We’ll use this blog as an example. I’m giving props to GoodSearch and linking you to the site: http://www.goodsearch.com/. By promoting GoodSearch on our blog, we create an actual, measurable result for the cause—while showing our compassionate side as corporate bloggers. With sensitivity to everyone’s differing opinions and beliefs, it’s a no-cost, non-partisan move that gets us out of the muck about “what we support” but answers a confident yes to the question of “whether we support charitable causes.” It’s clearly a cause marketing win-win scenario.

So click through to GoodSearch, find a charity you support, do a search to learn more about your cause and share it with friends. Better yet, if you really love GoodSearch, make our blog your home page and then click to GoodSearch.