Cardz for Kidz! Uplifting Spirits, One Card at a Time

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Eye to Eye

“CONGRATULATIONS!!!! OUT OF THE 1,000+ CARDS VOTERS PICKED YOU AS #1!!!! WE’RE IMPRESSED!”

“REALLY?!?!? YEAH!!!!”

It’s true. A lot of folks get real surprised and excited when they learn that their card was picked for the Overall Top 10.

First, we’ll give you the background of how it works. The organizer of each event picks the Top 10 cards from that event. Then they send us the entire stack of cards with the Top 10 separated. We immediately send out the remaining cards and hold the Top 10. At the end of the quarter our official judge selects the Overall Top 10 cards.

For some folks it’s most impressive that out of the 1,300+ cards they’re in the Top 10, but others are excited for another reason – face to face confirmation that hard work pays off.

As noted in prior posts on our social sites, websites, flyers, etc, we invite the Top 10 artists to make cards with pediatric patients and their families. Currently we make cards with patients at Lurie Children’s hospital in Chicago, IL and Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI. Usually we try to spark some competition! J We tell the children and volunteers about our Top 10 process. Then we tell the kids to pick their ULTIMATE FAVORITE card. The “artists” are actually sitting behind them. Once they make their selection we make a HUGE deal about it, update the “artists” then have the “artist” pose with the patient.

One of the top “artists” posing with the patient who selected their cards as #1.

Here’s a brief example of why inviting the top “artists” to make cards with children is so important.

Top 10 cards in Q4 2013

Turns out two young boys selected the Batman card as their ultimate favorite. The only problem is they picked it at the exact same time and we weren’t sure who should keep it. Thankfully the “artist” was there to immediately make one of the boys a Blackhawks card. Turns out both patients got their dream card – happily ever after!

Although it’s great being acknowledged for your artistic ability, one key benefit of making amazing cards is the possibility of participating in Cardz WITH Kidz. With that in place, you’ll be able to look the child you’re impacting Eye to Eye.

#upliftingspirits #eyetoeye

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 new videos on Youtube!

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Not Guilty

Our ideal comment on Facebook was, “… it was one of the most relaxing lunch hours ever. We turned on Pandora, ate pizza and made cards. I encourage you to coordinate an event at your office as well.” Relaxing, encourage, easy, fun…those are the most important words rather than the words, Cardz, for, and Kidz.

Cardz for Kidz! analyzes our “performance” on the total amount of smiles rather than the overall social buzz and media coverage! Thankfully, based on YOUR cards we’ve produced nearly 10,000 smiles.

An “artist” posing with the card she made during the Pledge Allegiance event and the patient at Mott Children’s Hospital covering her smile because she received her favorite card.

One may think:

Q: You first started creating cards in 2010, but the Nurses, Patients, Families, and “Artists” don’t know your name. In fact, I still can’t remember Cardz for Kidz! is spelled with a ‘z’ rather than a ‘s’! How come??

A: We are not striving for additional attention. We simply need cards.

As of 11:05pm on September 2, 2014 here were our social statistics:

Facebook Fans: 608
Twitter Followers: 81
LinkedIn Followers: 13

Just to put things in perspective:

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Facebook Fans: 70,261
The Salvation Army Twitter Followers: 43.3k
United Way of America LinkedIn Followers: 2,474

A couple months ago we had an ideal “experience”. Based on our schedules we were able to go pick up cards from a long standing partner. Our primary contact had a lunch meeting so she left the cards with a teammate at the front desk. It was sad because our point person broke the rules – she didn’t pick the Top 10 cards. Thankfully our buddy at the front desk agreed to select her favorites, but due to the overall quality she had to request back up. After the final decision was made, we briefly chatted about the mission of Cardz for Kidz!. They were shocked because they didn’t know there was a non-profit behind the scenes. They simply understood they were making cards for pediatric patients during their lunch time at work. We gave them our business cards with our Facebook page…soon after we got two more likes (included in the calculation above J). We are thankful that some companies, such as Kforce, include our logo and slogan on their flyers and such – it’s rare and that’s not a problem.

So although some of the board members have experience analyzing social trends and digital marketing, we are not concerned about the amount of followers on Twitter, likes on Facebook, or comments on our blog. Our key concentration is getting as many cards to as many kids as possible. And even though we’ve been at it since 2010, we’re going to focus on reaching passionate people to host events, and not worry about the consistent comment, “Cardz for Kidz!?? Never heard of them!”

So don’t worry if you aren’t using our official logo, linking to our pages, or even properly recognizing the fact that we’re delivering the cards for you! In terms of infringement or breaking a copyright, you’re found “NOT GUILTY” in our eyes!!

Also, unless absolutely necessary we’ll keep referring to ourselves as ‘us’, ‘we’, ‘Cardz for Kidz!’ and/or ‘founders’ on these social posts and website rather than using our personal names. We don’t need the attention, the kids do!

Please keep them coming!

#notguilty #upliftingspirits

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Quantity of Quality

Diamond – 1,000+ Cards: Not yet

Platinum – 500+ Cards: 3 Groups

Gold – 100+ Cards: 18+ Groups

Silver – ‘Valuable Participants’: 26+ Groups

That’s the breakout of the amount of groups per each participant level, http://cardzforkidz.org/participants/.

Based on our experience including delivering the cards, hearing stories from hospital staff, and the fact that each card is delivered room to room, we know every card is important; #everycardcounts. When we speak before events or update the organizer, we let folks know they should put in a little extra time. One reason why is that every card will be placed in a child’s hand.

NRS Global Partners LLC has definitely taken that into consideration - all of their cards in Q2 2014 were amazing!!! To be honest, we were all a bit shocked the judges didn't pick all of them for the Top 10!

Here’s an example of some of their cards:

Since they were all artistic we sent one of their cards to a special patient who lives in Massachusetts.

All of their cards were excellent. So although they’re not a ‘Diamond’ level participant (actually no one is yet J), their QUANTITY OF QUALITY is truly appreciated.

#upliftingspirits #quantityofquality

Friday, August 15, 2014

E. All of the Above

While looking through our records it’s clear a wide array of groups have participated in Cardz for Kidz!. It ranges from elementary school kids making some during indoor lunch recess on a rainy day, to global companies hosting large corporate events.

We promise each hospital that we’ll give them enough cards for each one of their patients at least once a quarter. We understand that people get busy at different times so not many groups can Arrowstream-it and make a card every quarter. Therefore, we always need to connect with new potential participants in order to get more cards.

Below are some different groups we’ve reached out to; each had a different reason to make cards:

College students who want to relax after their exam and preparing for their date party that week.
Teachers and Professors who are busy and potentially stressed prepping for upcoming classes and reviewing prior assignments.
Community group leaders who are interested in giving back to their communities in many ways, but are on tight budgets.
Employees at big or small companies who are interested in impacting their immediate community, connecting with colleagues, and improving the company’s image.

Those groups may all be interested in different aspects of Cardz for Kidz! and may not care as much about other portions. So during some of our tweets or flyers we’ve been debating on how we should “position” ourselves.

Which one of these works best classifies the card making experience?

a) Fun

b) Easy & Relaxing

c) Inexpensive

d) Impactful

Thankfully making cards for kids in hospitals with friends is a lot of fun. Also, since all you need to do is gather art supplies, you can hold an “event” anywhere and anytime. It’s pretty easy to put together a relaxing event. Then again, it’s important that one does not need to make ANY type of donation or long term commitment to get involved – real inexpensive. But let’s not forget that since each card is delivered room to room and there are hospitals across the country participants are making a big impact.

With all those reasons to participate, we’d have to say E. ALL OF THE ABOVE. Making cards is something that everyone can do since its fun, easy, not expensive, and you’re making an impact! Thankfully we can remind everyone in a special way why they should get involved

Here’s a special quote from a vital part of Cardz for Kidz!.:

Why do you think Cardz for Kidz!. is important?

“It reminds kids that someone is thinking about them and makes them feel less isolated. It’s a fun way to bring people together to do something beyond them.” – Rachel; artist and nurse – connected us to our hospital in Haiti, a potential hospital in Denver and works at one of our key hospitals in Chicago.

#upliftingspirits #eAlloftheAbove

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Efficient Ways

Now that we’re a certified 501(c)(3) non-profit we need to keep track of our expenses a bit more. Some may say we should simply keep these details amongst the board, but we’re dedicated to being 100% open.

Here are some expenses:

Logo Design[1] - $0.00
Legal Fees for Preparing State and National Paperwork[2] - $0.00
Introductory and Participation Videos[3] - $0.00
Smile Video[4] - $0.00
Managing Social Media[5] - $0.00
Promotional Advertising to Reach New Companies[6] - $0.00

But don’t get us wrong, unfortunately this isn’t all free. For example, it’s only been slightly over a month and we’ve already spent over $80 in shipping this quarter.

Based on our desire to keep costs down, if you check out our website you’ll notice that currently there’s a page missing, www.cardzforkidz.org/donate.

While taking a closer look we realized that there were a lot of background fees which were hindering our ability to provide other types of goods and services to the children (DVD Players & Art Supplies). So temporarily we decided to pause that page.

On a positive note, our overhead costs (i.e. annual government paperwork) and prior fixed costs (i.e. building our website) have made us extremely thankful for PHD’s Big Hug Event, folks who attended the Pledge Allegiance event, and individual donors.

In the future we’ll get the page up and running again, but in the present we’ll continue to find EFFICIENT WAYS to uplift spirits!

[1] Thanks Arron Davis! Still shocked by how fast you did it!

[2] Thanks to Grace Aduroja, Ndu Ozor and Veronica Farley-Seybert. Don’t know how you did it!

[3] Thanks Adrian Aras, we’re still impressed!

[4] Thanks Dave Harrison, we’re so happy!

[5] Don’t know what we’d do without free times on the weekend and Hootsuite. Thanks Andrea Zimmer for teaching us about it

[6] That’s all you! 100% of new participants have been reached via word of mouth!

Monday, August 4, 2014

Let's Not Forget

Still to this day we remember hearing one of the volunteers chat about how they got into a fight with Snow White at the hospital. Don’t remember all the details, but it was something about who is thebest Disney princess of all time….definitely something worth fighting about! For more of the setting, the hospital had a schedule for people dressed up as Disney princesses to come in and play with the kids.

Disney princesses, something kids love!

Then again there are other fabulous things that kids love (i.e. One Direction - there’s one company in particular who loves to make cards with those boys on it).

But during this past week, instead of strictly shipping cards to hospitals one of our team members went room to room and delivered them at a local hospital.

Here’s his story:

___

“The hardest part about ‘blindly’ delivering cards room to room is you’re not able to ‘prepare’. So I was able to ‘cheat’ a couple times because I saw the family in the activity area and was able to check to see which room they were visiting (one young girl had 10+ cousins in the family center – she got the ‘perfect’ card). For safety reasons patients names were not on the door, so for the most part I simply walked up to the room, knocked on the door, then stepped in. Since I didn’t have a census for each floor I wasn’t sure if there would be a boy or girl in the room and also didn’t know their age!

Based on my repertoire it was definitely the easiest when I stepped in and both the mother and young girl looked at me and said “HI MISTER!” I could simply reach in, grab a pink card and hand it to the child. Smiles all around. The tough part was walking into the room of a patient who had more facial hair than I did. Or walking into a room where when I stepped in the Grandma or mother moved in closer to the patient because one needed to be the translator.”

Something that we truly believe and will continue to be one of our hash tags is Every Card Counts. No matter what the language or what’s in it, the card is truly important since a child will receive it. BUT based on stories from volunteers and employees we understand that we need a couple more cards that young males, 13+ would enjoy. Also….¡necesitamos más tarjetas en Español! One time we delivered 20 cards to a hospital and only one of them was in Spanish. They immediately wrote back and thanked us for the Spanish card! J

So yes. We agree. It’s great that folks can passionately express their dedication to Belle in an enthusiastic conversation with Snow White while Cinderalla listens in the background, but LET’S NOT FORGET the young men in the hospital. Let’s make some “manly” cards. And equally important, let’s remember some of the patients who cannot speak English.

#upliftingspirits #letsnotforget

Thursday, July 17, 2014

It's Official

501c3. 401K. 403B. L5. ABC123. With all these number letter and combinations it’s often hard to tell which ones are real, let alone important. Okay…..now we’re officially bias, but we believe 501(c)(3) is the most important pairing! J

Originally we thought it’d be okay to have community groups make cards every now and then. Then once interest started to spread by company groups, more and more participants have been asking if we had the special letter number combination. Since every card counts we have a page dedicated to recognizing participants. In order to get logos up there we have to receive permission from each group, their logo, and if people click on it the group’s desired landing page.

On the backend for our own tracking purposes we keep an excel chart that tracks EVERYTHING related to Cardz for Kidz!. This data ranges from how many cards each group has made to the total amount we’ve paid for shipping. It’s internal. No one sees it. Even with all the ‘privacy’ it still says “Anonymous Donor”.

This anonymous company made cards in Q4 2012, Q1 2013 and again in Q4 2013, but based on company policy they cannot directly associate themselves with non-certified groups. We marked it as “Anonymous Donor” so we’d be 100% SURE that we wouldn’t break their rules! Hopefully that’ll change with our newly acquired number letter combo!

Since we first started the paperwork we’ve learned that if we continued to buy DVD players for hospitals, we’d be able to get a large discount also due to that number letter combo. We could erase the fees associated with hosting a website with those letters and numbers connected to our name. But although all those benefits are great, the best part about this certification is that IT'S OFFICIAL, everyone can participate in Cardz for Kidz!.

#upliftingspirits #itsofficial

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!