Team Effort

One time when we were connecting with a group and telling them about our Participants page, www.cardzforkidz.org/participants, they got excited when we told them by simply making cards we’d recognize them on our site. We briefly explained the different tiers; how Diamond meant that that group made over 1,000 cards, but, as we always say, #EveryCardCounts, so even if a group has made less than 100 they’re still a Valuable Participant and belong in the Silver section. They were intrigued.

We had another group who we told about our levels and immediately decided they should be at the top, or at least in the Platinum Section. They held a couple events...then realized how hard it was to do within their one office. Afterwards, they grumbled about how it was too difficult and claimed other groups may be cheating. 😊

We decided to look into it a bit deeper and did notice something. This may change, but currently it takes team work to get to the top! Doesn’t that sound like something a high school basketball coach would say? Not something you would read while hearing about making homemade cards? Well, maybe it just works for both scenarios! Here’s an explanation. Check out a screenshot of our Participants tab:

In the Diamond section you’ll see we currently only have 5 logos up there. This ranges from companies that strictly work with other corporations to community groups primarily comprised of students. There are so many differences between those groups ranging from being based in Tampa, FL to Chicago, IL. With all those distinctions, one thing that’s common between all the valuable groups is what the coach would say, “it took a team.”

Often with a lot groups we simply get one person to start it in their office and they strictly make cards. With each of our Diamond participants, that one person told someone that’s a part of their group in another location. For example, with our top group, Capital One, one day we received a set of cards from one office. After they confirmed we could use their logo, they started sharing it to other offices and made it an event for multiple offices to do “together”. We were posting and tagging Capital One across all our social sites so much we tried to group some of the Top 10’s together on some of our social sites!

Now, here’s a breakdown of each of our top groups that are recognized on our site to show how they’ve worked together to reach our kids:

 As of May 2017 – many more locations have joined in since then!

 *Please note with PLS all the corporate stores sent the cards to one person who shipped us the total package that’s why they only have one color on the graph!

All the different colors are a different office or school within that group. It’s hard to keep track, but like the coach may say, it’s definitely a TEAM EFFORT in order to reach the top and making a lasting difference. If you’re already hosting an event consider inviting more friends and/or other offices.

#teameffort #upliftingspirits

Psstt….keep it a secret, but currently one of our Top participants is our “Secret Admirer”. They’ve made over 1,000 cards as well and it’s been through multiple stores. We’ll tell you all about them soon!

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+ or LinkedIn pages! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

It's Up To You

This blog post was partially sparked by a recent conversation our founder had on a recent Uber ride home.

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These days it seems like the majority of my Uber rides, no matter where I’m coming from or where I’m going, I often start talking about Cardz for Kidz! with the drivers. With one driver it was about how he leads a summer camp and how it would be good for his kids to participate, and on another ride it was about how we’ve been trying to expand and increase our presence across Africa and other parts of the globe. The driver commented on how our presence in Africa is pretty minimal, which leads me into how It’s Up to You.

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Thankfully, based on the increased participation, we are no longer saying the only way we can reach kids outside of the United States is if people Carry a Bit More, but we do need some help to find hospitals or shelters that would want cards from a small non-profit in the United States.

Now, if you were to follow our social media closely and were to check out this map you’d probably be a bit confused. 

Here’s a group that claims to be, “100% open and honest”, but doesn’t have any special marks in the Philippines or Australia even though they posted about making special shipments there recently. That’s true, but since the majority of our special deliveries are directly to children’s homes, we REFUSE to publicly display that information (it’s the same in the USA). If you hover over any of the images on the map on our homepage you’ll see the name of the location. Then if you click on it you’ll the see the address. We’re always interested in finding new hospitals/shelters so we can impact more children. These locations can be places that we partner with on a quarterly basis here in North America or locations anywhere in the globe where we’d send special deliveries. Please let us know if you have any recommendations!

So if you’re wondering how you can help us reach new locations whether it’s within the United States or anywhere across the globe it’s VERY easy. Just in case you don’t believe us, just check out our How-To page.

If you see the first section with all the files at the top, that’s all about how to host events and make cards. With that there are a bunch more requirements and it’s a bit more “tough”. We put together PowerPoints and signs that you can lay across the table and even a file with links to Amazon with all the recommended art supplies. Now when it comes to receiving cards, it’s actually two steps and no files attached. All you need to do is tell us the number of cards you need and promise they’ll all be hand delivered.

So when we were originally designing that page for our site we were thinking of disheartened children in the USA, but as you can see in the map above we’re able to make special deliveries to kids across the globe. The only thing is someone needs to reach out to us and layout how many cards and what address we should send them to. So we can say, it’s up to us to collect the amount of cards that each hospital and/or shelter needs, but IT’S UP TO YOU to help us reach children in different countries that you may feel passionately connected to.

Check out this album on Facebook to see some of our global deliveries – Special Global Deliveries!

#itsuptoyou #upliftingspirits #acrosstheglobe

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+ or LinkedIn pages! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube! 

Help Wanted

One good sign of an improving economy is starting to see “We’re Hiring” signs in different stores. We feel that means that different small businesses and/or convenience stores have experienced an increase in demand, are starting to sell more, and/or their prior employees have been able to move up to better positions. Now one thing associated with all those signs is some form of monetary composition. Based on that, although we’re looking for some additional support, we definitely couldn’t use one of those types of signs!

Thankfully Cardz for Kidz! has started to grow in a couple ways. We’ve started to receive more donations from companies such as UBS, as well as started to get more cards from groups like PLS. Due to that combination, we’d love to get more assistance in order to expand what we do on the backend and help spread the word.

Here are some of the ways we’re looking for help!

BI-WEEKLY VOLUNTEERS:

Since we’re based in Chicago, we’d expect these volunteers to live in the Chicagoland area – or to be EXTREMELY passionate about Cardz for Kidz! and be willing to travel! 😊 These volunteers would help us sort through the cards, double checking to make sure all the cards are appropriate; if groups don’t pick the Top 10 on their own, we may need volunteers to select that for some packages; help put the Cardz for Kidz! sticker on cards; as well as help us reach out to new hospitals and/or shelters. The work with the cards would take place on the weekend, while we would need some individuals to help with contacting hospitals during the week. Currently, this is all being done by one person, but we’d love to get a team of volunteers so we’d be able to grow and thankfully partner with thousands of more children.

ADVISORY BOARD:

We’ve started contacting some individuals, but if you know anyone who may be interested in helping provide input on how we can help increase our global impact, we’d love to hear from you. The three key things we need from this portion of the board is advocacy, strategic recommendations, and occasional fundraising. We create and send quarterly updates that show our statistics in terms of where we’re getting the cards and where we’re sending the cards, as well as some details on the donations and expenses. 

 Example chart from prior quarterly summary.

We expect this team to provide insight in decisions regarding growth or allocating our resources most effectively. In addition, to the quarterly summary, we also have an annual phone call where we run through the overall details that year and discuss Cardz for Kidz! with all the board members.

In summary, we’re looking for people who align with our mission and are interested in making a commitment to impacting the lives of disheartened children and solemn seniors across the globe. The time commitments would range from every other week to on average once a month. So similar to how everyone behind the scenes at Cardz for Kidz!  is volunteering, we’re going to ask these new additions to primarily volunteer as well. With that in mind we can’t technically post a We’re Hiring sign, but we know based on our current growth and our future goals we can definitely say there’s HELP WANTED!

#HelpWanted #UpliftingSpirits

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