What happens when you let your team decide how give back to the community?
Community is at the heart of what we do: providing software to help small local business owners thrive, grow, and become cornerstones of their local community.
One of the challenges of running a remote (and global!) company is that local is hard to define. Punchpass should support global causes, like we do with our Stripe Climate support, but also assist local causes. Local means the communities where our employees live and work.
And who better to decide which local organizations need financial support than the people who live there!
The Organizations We Donated To:
This holiday season we gave everyone at the company $200 to support charities and non-profit organizations of their choosing, and asked everyone to post in Slack who they gave to, and why.
Where our team sent their donations:
————————
Project Host has been around for a few decades here in Greenville, and covers a whole spectrum of food insecurity. Aside from housing, food insecurity is a huge issue in the city & county. They also recently finished a renovation of their main location so that there are giant windows; which allows people to eat a warm meal, in a warm location, while not feeling like they’re trapped in a facility.
MSF (Doctors without Borders) is, simply put, one of the critical ways that healthcare is distributed on a global scale
————————
Winter is so hard for Mainers without shelter and basic necessities. It’s really special to get to support these two organizations who do so much.
Preble Street is the main on-peninsula shelter and human service agency in Portland. The demand for beds and meals and support from their organization is significant. They do amazing work even though they take on so much to support the community.
Maine Needs is an organization my local studio partners with often, they take donations and provide basic material needs to the community – warm winter clothing, hygiene products, etc. We’ve volunteered there and dropped off a lot of donations over the years, but it’s my first time sending them direct financial support so they can get exactly what they need, which is fantastic!
————————
I donated to two local organizations here in VT. First, the VT Foodbank, which is the largest hunger-relief organization in the state, and does a fantastic job providing food through partners across the state.
I also gave to the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, one of hundreds of youth conservation corps across the country. They do great work across the state helping with farming, food access, climate resilience, outdoor access, and leadership training.
————————
I used my gift for four organizations, the local ones I volunteer my time with, and am so excited to make a financial contribution to support them:
The Finger Lakes Land Trust protects and preserves land in CNY. They have amazing trails and are one of my favorite organizations to volunteer with. If you’re ever in New York and looking for things to do, I recommend their guide to outdoor activities and nature preserves in the Finger Lakes region, https://www.gofingerlakes.org/.
Sunshine Horses rescues horses from some terrible situations and rehabilitates them with the aim of finding them forever homes. They also run several therapeutic programs for humans and horses. The organization is volunteer-run, and financial help goes a long way. I know they’ll appreciate the donation!
Bissell Pet Foundation. They help in big ways and also provide grants to local animal shelters across the country. I used my donation here for their crisis group, which provides aid to dogs in disaster scenarios.
Camillus Erie Canal. This tiny section of the Erie Canal is one of my favorites. The Erie Canal is a unique piece of NYS history. Helping an organization that helps others enjoy the trail as much as I do makes this worthy of the support!
————————
For my donations I wanted to take advantage of the strong US dollar and give locally to a grassroots organisation who would make it count, so the majority of my contribution went to Heart & Soul who collect and distribute food to those in need (I’m looking into spending my volunteer days with them next year too). I was able to give $200AU and $0.50 provides a meal so the math is mathing.
The remaining amount ($50US) I sent to MSF (Doctors Without Borders) because I couldn’t turn away from the incredible work that they do.
————————
One of the biggest problems in modern society, yet a tabu, is mental health. Those who are lucky have support from great physicians and therapists along the way. A local NGO dedicated to this topic is Tijuana’s Mental Health Institute.
Suicidal rates, depression and drug abuse are in a spike, especially in developed countries and while actions to prevent drug abuse are more reactive from institutions and governments is no surprise that these actions have made really no difference in these statistics. I truly believe that it all starts with a good education, a strong family bond and ultimately a healthy body and mind. That is why I decided to spend the rest on the World Federation of Mental Health.
————————
I chose to donate to the Drug Policy Alliance, a long-running organization fighting to end the war on drugs. And this month, donations are being matched so the donation was doubled!
The Drug Policy Alliance is doing a lot of important work in lobbying, public education, and advocacy for those most negatively affected by the drug war and envisions a future where we can have policies around drugs truly informed by compassion, science, and freedom. Given the impact of the drug war on the entire world, making change in the United States on these issues inevitably has a global impact.
————————
Making It Work
We use Ramp, which allows us to easily assign virtual cards with preset limits to everyone – from there it’s all up to them!
That makes things easy on our end…we don’t have to consolidate who wants to give where, and process everything ourselves. (We’ve done that in the past – while it’s still worthwhile, it’s a pain!) We get the receipts in Ramp automatically.
And We’ll Do It Again
We LOVE how this experiment went and it’s definitely something we’ll continue. Not only did we get to donate to a bunch of great causes, we learned a lot about what everyone on the team cares about, and a little more about their different communities.
Win win win!
