In planning for our summer event, we visited with the following member companies to survey and validate understanding and interest in EFCO. In general, we found that most employees did not know much about EFCO, but our lunch meetings drew 10 to 20 employees. These meetings provided a good platform for sharing about existing efforts and sparking other interests. Everyone sounded very interested in learning more and doing skills based volunteering, if it was well packaged.
Here is a quick summary from each of the brown bag lunches:
At GoldSystems, it was apparent their company wanted to give back. However, it was questioned whether this was an individual's or company's responsibility. The employees present decided to create a library for specific items that are needed in the community. They now have a centralized place for people to bring things, and every month captures a new need/item.
During the Brown Bag at ClickCaster, Keenan (CEO) shared his own involvement in the local community and beyond. Keenan helped start Bicycles for Humanity, through this non-profit 400 bikes have been sent to Africa to help aid workers navigate to various communities. The other employees at ClickCaster agreed that community involvement is a good idea and that working together as a team could also help them inside the office.
The folks at Lijit came up with an innovative idea to send email blasts to employees about upcoming events in the community. They also agreed that an online site/blog could be helpful if non-profits were to post what kind of help they needed in the tech department. This sort of website would help because all EFCO member companies could view who needs help with what and also leverage their skill sets. Finally, the question of quality vs. quantity was brought up. It is clear that there are many employees that make up EFCO member companies. It is important that the skills volunteered are actually helping to make a difference.
The employees at Solidware Technologies had previously tried to get involved with the community around Christmas. However, by the time they had everyone on board, all the volunteer activities they were interested in were full. They agreed that it is a struggle to find a volunteer opportunity for a large number of people in the Boulder Community. This was especially frustrating given that their time is relatively precious. This can be said for most all of the member EFCO companies and is thus an important issue to consider.
At our double show with TechStars and SocialThing, it was agreed that there needs to be a central location for what needs to be done in the community and for whom it needs to be done. It was important to the employees that a volunteer activity at the mid-year event be locally helpful and engaging. They believe it is important for a proper education of what is going on in the Boulder Community so that member companies/employees can really understand the problems and needs in order to help make a difference. The employees seemed eager to come together to do something that can make a difference.
Finally at Newsgator, we were able to rope in Phil Nash from the Rose Foundation at the first pitch in Denver. We discovered through the Rose team a much more elaborate non-profit network built up in Denver to support skills-based volunteering and community engagement. Karyn German and the Newsgator team were highly interested in applying their widget and social networking technology for use in this space.
If your firm did not do one, but you would still like to do one, please contact Ryan.
Ryan and I have taken all the feedback that has been generated from the various Brown Bag lunches we have attended and used it to help shape the mid-year event. The event is still in the preliminary planning stage, but more information will be available soon.