Thursday, September 29, 2016

Do The Math

Just like last week, we’re confined and we have to start off by telling the truth! Tough job! The two gentleman who helped get Cardz for Kidz! off the ground and are featured in one of our introductory videos are both marketing majors. Therefore, they’re BIAS! Similar to other folks, one of them was under the impression that when it came to people interested in business (e.g. marketing, finance, and accounting), marketing folks were the nice ones. If you check out the Participants tab on our website, you’ll see the logos for several renowned marketing or advertising agencies and/or organizations (e.g. Ogilvy, PHD, CIMA).

In Q3 2012, all of our cards came from either 5 different marketing/advertising agencies or people who made cards in their free time. Fast forward to present. Everything’s changed!

Recently, what opened our eyes is a completed a press release that we sent to a couple of news stations down in New Mexico. It was all about how UBS Financial Services helped produce 484 cards within one quarter. We took a deeper look and noticed that we’ve been getting a lot of cards from financial groups. Here are some examples:


Need more? Okay. The bias marketing in us may simply say ‘employees from General Motors global headquarters participated’, but to be honest, it was only a portion of their accounting department! It’s a stretch, but if you want, you could add on Quicken Loans, PLS and Capital One.

So, although we can try and stretch the truth and say, “Yeah, there may be some marketing folks who work at those large accounting/finance/economics firms who are starting it, we can DO THE MATH and understand that people in those mathematical professions care and give back just as much, if not more!” Thankfully, everyone can have fun joining in.


To see more pictures and stories, please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Thursday, September 22, 2016

The Last Letter

Here we go again! With this post we had this AWESOME idea on how we were going to explain how/why it’s so hard to find our website and Facebook page using standard search engines. How most people who participate in an event will never know they partook in a Cardz for Kidz! event; how when we’re creating Instagram posts, we always use the #cardsforkids hashtag in order to get people who may be a bit confused.

We had all of that in mind, but we remembered our promise that we touched on in our previous blogs - to always be 100% open and honest. So, we’ll start off the real reason we spell our name, Cardz for Kidz! then how it aligns with our hashtags and our theme!

 (disappointed sigh). Honesty.  

We touched on this before, but our founder actually wasn’t creative enough to think of the title ‘Cards for Kids.’ It was one of the other people at his church who were a part of the first event that’s referred to on our About Us page. After encouragement, our founder decided to make it a 501(c)(3) certified non-profit. But, first, he created a Facebook page.

Please keep this a secret since it’ll make us look bad, but at the time he didn’t realize what he was doing and actually was trying to create a Facebook GROUP rather than a page. We discussed this during our prior post, but here was the process. First, he searched for “Cards for Kids.” That was taken by a group who was raising money to help kids support their schooling. Then, he looked into “Cards 4 Kids.” Unfortunately, we can’t find the link anymore, but that was also taken by a group who played poker or other card games to raise money for kids. As a third option, we tried “Cardz for Kidz.” Since no one had that, we created that ‘Group’. At the time there was only 1 group with those names – now there are multiple. We could’ve just created another “Cards for Kids” group!
[Please note it took us 45+ minutes to write this paragraph since we were searching Facebook looking for the original groups!]

Later, we figured out the difference between a Facebook page and Facebook group. We reached out to some other groups who had “Cards for Kids” or similar titles to see if they wanted to work together (e.g.  we specialize in getting groups together they work to get independent artists), but they weren’t interested.

 (sigh of relief).  Now that’s off our chest we can pretend. 

We’re sorry. We understand since spelling those words with z’s isn’t common, one can often forget. Also, since there are so many different ways to write ‘for’ (e.g. for, 4, four) it’s tough to get that right. But, hopefully this helps.

As we always say, #EVERYCARDCOUNTS. With that, there are two meanings.
  • First, we can touch on the cards themselves. If you follow us on social media or check out our participants tab, you’ll notice that we often talk about which groups have made the most cards. That’s because we count each of the cards that comes in. We can say, simply having a card come in and NOT tracking it so we can recognize the group, is the LAST thing we’d want. Therefore, we’ll use the LAST letter rather than a S. Cardz not Cards!
  • Second, and even more importantly, we’re all about the children. Each card is important (aka “counts”) because those are being delivered room to room. We take time to primarily find smaller hospitals, but no matter what size hospital we’re working with, they have to pinky promise us they’ll hand deliver all the cards. We want to make sure the kids who are confined to their beds based on the testing or conditions can be uplifted as well. Let’s pretend we’re using the LAST letter for the second part of our name, because having a child feel alone is the LAST thing we want. Kidz not Kids!


Now, if you’re trying to think of what to include between the Cardz and Kidz, just remember that we’re trying to reach as many kids as possible, i.e. #EVERYCARDCOUNTS. Based on that, we’re delivering/reaching way more than 4/four kids. Currently we’re stuck at 4 continents (Africa, Asia*, North America, and South America**), but that’ll change soon.

We understand folks who haven’t read this blog post may still think of the letter “S” when they hear the words cards and kids, but we’re hoping that you remember we’re using THE LAST LETTER a couple times for a couple reasons!



Here are some examples that show remembering how to spell our name can be pretty difficult:

Post on Facebook


Subject line of email (blocked out the company):

#TheLastLetter #UpliftingSpirits


To see more pictures and stories, please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

*Location in the Middle East is not on the map…..yet. Waiting for clearance.

**Were unable to get a hold of the gentleman who hand delivered the cards in Colombia to get the name of the location so we didn’t add the destination to map on our homepage.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

A Special Name

We needed some honest feedback. Since some of the behind the scenes folks are interested in market research, we decided we should check with the ladies before we started this blog post. Here were the responses based on the “poll” aka Facebook status:
  • “Here’s an anonymous question I’ll need for an upcoming Cardz for Kidz! blog post. Ladies, (men, it’d be interesting to hear your perspective too), what was the first thing you thought of when you found out you were pregnant? I thought it was an obvious answer, but after my first set of responses I’m a bit surprised and I may not be able to write it!!!”
    • “This is going to be awesome.”
    • “Sam is going to be so excited.”
    • “Oh my God! What do I do now? Am I ready for this?”
    • “First time – Holy Cow! Second time – Yay!!! Third time – Awesome! Fourth time (with sick kids puking) – Oh no!!! lol”
    • “Excited, then scared and nervous. Maybe all at the same time!”
    • “But I’m not married.”
    • “First Time – ‘OH MY GOD!’ Second Time – ‘OH SH!T!’ And there won’t be a third time!”
    • “Sh!t. I drank my @ss off all weekend. I hope I didn’t screw up my baby.”
    • “Thank goodness. It’s about time.”


We were shocked! Those weren’t the answers we were looking for. We thought folks’ original response would be ‘I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl’?

What started this whole thought is that we had a conversation and someone asked us if we “ever thought about naming him?” When we asked what him they were referring to, they looked at us like we were crazy and mentioned that obviously it’s the little boy in our logo.



For some background, we tried to make our logo as ambiguous as possible when our artists were creating it. We made sure it was a shade darker, bald rather than with hair, and that the card covered up a possible shirt.

As touched on in our prior post, True Princess, just because our buddy doesn’t have hair doesn’t mean they’re a boy. They may still be a true princess! With all that in mind, we can’t refer to our logo as “it”, “he/she” or “they”. Our logo needs a name. Can you help us think of A SPECIAL NAME? One that wouldn’t make people immediately think of one gender and/or race! Please comment below.

  
To see more pictures and stories, please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Bright Morningstar

We promise you’d be surprised if you knew about ALL of the behind-the-scenes “traditions” we have here at Cardz for Kidz!. Those range from how we prefer to store the potential Top 10 cards in our homes to the preferred bag we use to deliver the cards!


Morningstar has been a big supporter of Cardz for Kidz!, and in a special way.
Something we have learned is that almost EVERYONE who participates in making cards has a GREAT time doing it. Also, it is VERY EASY to put together an ‘event’. If you read through the How-To tab on our site, http://cardzforkidz.org/how-to, you’ll get an explanation on how to host an event AND files that can be used throughout the event – plus we are always willing to answer any questions people have. Still, even with all that ease, if the main sponsor and/or person who started Cardz for Kidz! at the company leaves, that group’s participation usually drastically decreases and/or stops.

Our original contact left Morningstar in July 2014, and, since then, other people have stepped in to continue the program and make nearly 200 cards (197 to be exact). We can compare that to one of the early groups, who made 395 cards, but when there was a change, they haven’t made any since. In fact, employees at Morningstar have created their own events to make cards in their free time as well. For example, one employee made cards with her comic book club, and we were told that’s where one of the OVERALL top 10 cards came from in Q1 2016! 

Also, if that’s not impressive enough, with nearly 100 groups who have hosted events, Morningstar was one of the first 10 groups to support Cardz for Kidz! AND our founder was not directly connected to them when they held their first event. Our original contact at Morningstar stepped in on her own, and they started strong; 101 cards three years ago, Q2 2013!
It’s not just quantity, but quality that is important. As we touched on, Q2 2016 was a record setting quarter! 

Although we received nearly 3,000 cards, Morningstar created TWO of our OVERALL Top 10 cards!!! 

‘White Baseball’ card and ‘Purple Star’ card!

Based on their continued commitment and bright smiles, we’ll refer to them as our BRIGHT MORNINGSTAR, since they’ve been able to consistently find people to step in and make cards!

Here’s a link to their album on our Facebook page, but here are a couple of those pics. They just need 85 more cards and they’ll get their own exclusive event at Lurie Children’s Hospital - Platinum Participant!





#BrightMorningstar #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube or pictures on Instagram!

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Impact on Families

So, many of the folks behind the scenes at Cardz for Kidz! volunteer or work at pediatric hospitals and are able to see where some of the cards go. For a while, we delivered the cards room to room, but were always too timid to take pictures. Then, we saw that other groups and the hospital had pictures of patients, so we decided to give it a try.

After we didn’t get criticized/rejected/rebuffed from that experience, we decided to take pictures after one of our more recent Cardz WITH Kidz event. Here are a couple pictures of patients and their families: 



Those pictures don’t fully encapsulate how excited the families were to be classified as Very Important Patients ( VIPs).

For this post, we definitely wanted to share the family pictures because we thought, “what if?” What if artists could actually see the impact they’re having on patients’ families in their rooms, the excitement they’re bringing? We’re sure we’d get even more cards. Please remember that we are only able to show you quotes from hospital staff and smiles from patients, but you’re IMPACT ON FAMILIES is even bigger than you think.

#ImpactonFamilies #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!