For years, 97th Floor employees selected charities to receive their company-sponsored donations—giving the team the opportunity to learn about new causes, find greater empathy, and gain awareness of brave organizations driving change in the world.
We wanted to extend this “tool” to the world publicly, deciding to build the first-ever charity-matching engine to connect people with causes they care about.
Users take the “Charity Quiz”—a series of questions that identify one’s philanthropic goals. For example, users can focus their efforts and donations on addressing climate change, inequality, or education—learning about organizations that tackle these issues.
Marketers work with data every day, but it can be easy to forget that there are real people behind every number—we set out to find one of those people and help them out this holiday season. Check out how we did it .
Marketers crave data. It informs our decisions, helps us solve problems, and runs the world around us. But marketing data is more than numbers in a spreadsheet, an analytics report, or a list in your CRM—behind every number is a person.
For our 2022 holiday campaign, we challenged ourselves to find the real people behind the data we analyze every day, see what we could learn from them, and find a way to lift them up. Our friends and clients at ProAthlete (a hugely successful sports equipment company that owns JustBats, JustBallGloves, JustPaddles and Routine) eagerly partnered with us to make this possible.
For weeks and with the help of the ProAthlete marketing team, we crawled through ProAthlete’s data, layering it with other data sources to find a real customer we could help. In our search we combed through:
Finally we discovered the perfect candidate for this year's campaign—Chris Evans and his non-profit, named the I AM KING Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri.
We invited Chris and a few of his players to tour ProAthlete’s facility telling them we would be donating $1000 dollars to the foundation, but we had something much bigger planned—a $30,000 donation to the foundation to cover the costs of new equipment and to help contribute to the I AM KING scholarship funds.
What is the I AM KING Foundation?
Chris Evans founded the I Am King Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, “to educate, inspire and empower young men to become community leaders.”
“When my son was in kindergarten, I literally had to beg parents to bring their kids out to play baseball because everyone wanted to do football and basketball. I brought them out there and they loved it. We had a great time and decided to see how far we could take it” - Chris Evans
Each baseball season Chris invests 20-30 hours of his time weekly coaching little league teams, planning educational field trips, and developing the young men he works with into leaders. The I Am King Foundation accepts donations in an effort to “level the playing field in little league baseball.”
What is Pledge 1%?
Pledge 1% is a movement founded by leaders of Salesforce and Atlassian that encourages and empowers companies to donate 1% of their revenue to charitable and community-based causes. For years, as part of 97th Floor’s Pledge 1% commitment, we have been fortunate enough to elevate brands and people just like Chris Evans that we believe in.
Want to learn more about how 97th Floor elevates people?
Check out last year's project CharityLabs—an engine to help you find charities that match your values and interests.
As each year comes to an end, we all draw our minds to what’s next.
But in the twilight between today and 2020, we at 97th Floor kick off our annual #20Helps campaign. The campaign was launched five years ago with a simple challenge: Demonstrate the positive power of money by setting aside a $20 bill for good.
We love the #20Helps campaign because it allows us to fulfill our mission of giving back. Being a Pledge 1% organization gives us many opportunities to share with our local and global community. We love that we can add #20Helps to our list of charity doings!
On the fifth year anniversary of #20Helps, we thought to tackle one of the biggest problems in today’s day and age. We thought, how can we use this campaign to connect people together?
This year, #20Helps is an invitation to connect.
As the years pass us by a $20 dollar bill doesn’t go as far as it used to. But when gifted with the love and attention that only comes through a genuine human connection, $20 can impact lives.
Here are a few ideas we thought of to make the most out of #20Helps this year:
We’d love to see what you come up with! Share your story using the hashtag #20Helps and track your impact with the #20Helps app (iOS) (Android).
As a company we commit to Pledge 1% - of revenue, resources and time to movements and missions that matter. The AF Canyon Run Against Cancer is close to COO Wayne Sleight's heart. See a bit of his story in the video.
We invite you to join us for this year's race, details here: http://afcanyonrun.com/
Run. Volunteer. Donate.
At 97th Floor, we’re committed to building a culture of caring. From volunteering at local community centers to the #20helps campaign, part of our award-winning organizational culture is focused on supporting local communities.
Started in 2015, a new charity initiative began at 97th Floor with the goal of donating 1% of our gross revenue to charity. Each December, employees have the opportunity to select a charity of their choice and 97th Floor will donate a portion of the 1% to that specific charity.
“I'm very fond of our charity program as it involves all of our employees,” CEO Chris Bennett explains. “I think a lot of people don't give or do as much as they'd like because they don't know where to donate or sadly, if they can trust the charity. Our program solves that for our employees.”
Since its inception, 97th Floor has donated over $100,000. Ranging from local charities to national nonprofit organizations, here’s where we’ve donated to over the course of two years:
Furthermore, these charities are near and dear to 97th Floor employees, who also had the opportunity to explain why they selected a specific charity to donate to. Here are some of their responses:
“I’m extremely passionate about Arctic Rescue and what they do to save the lives of these amazing dogs. Maren, the founder has dedicated the last 20 years to saving these neglected, abused and abandoned dogs and finding them loving forever homes.”
“I was impressed by the stories I read from the people that were on the receiving end of charity: water. To the charity, it’s not just about making sure that people have water, but about building the future of individuals and communities all over the world.”
“I have worked with JDRF several times in the past, and everything I have seen has spoken very well of them. They use their funds on research to search for, not only a cure, but also treatments and products to improve quality-of-life for those with Type 1 Diabetes.”
“I have been fortunate enough to have the best opportunities and have a family that could provide me with all the basic needs and more growing up. There are many people in the world that are not fortunate enough. So I chose World Vision because it helps underprivileged people from different countries that can’t even get basic medical needs.”
Through this charity program, 97th Floor has inspire its employees to look for ways to give back to the community as well as share with each other why this charity is important to them. As Bennett reflects, “It's one of the best days of my year to login to our Google Spreadsheet and see all the charities being added by our employees and reading their stories as to why they chose that charity.”
Employees at 97th Floor had a fun afternoon trading in our spreadsheets and computer screens for parachutes and soccer games. With the help of United Way, 97th Floor was provided with the opportunity to volunteer at the South Franklin Community Center, just 20 minutes south of our Lehi location. JuliAnne Tanner, Major Gifts Specialist at United Way, says that “the SFCC serves an at-risk population. Each family in the area presents a unique set of challenges. Volunteers really are making a difference in these kids’ lives by establishing educational priorities, developing healthy habits, and building a stronger sense of community attachment, all of which lead to better life decisions.”
From the moment we walked into the South Franklin Community Center, the children were eager to play. We headed outside where we taught the kids a few new games. In return, the kids taught us a thing or two about how to properly launch plastic balls from a parachute, and how to quickly slide through a hula hoop. By the end of the afternoon we all left with a few new friends.
I love SFCC’s mission to serve both children and families in the area. This program gives the children in this at-risk population the chance to meet and interact with other community members. Paxton Gray, Director of Marketing Operations at 97th Floor, said of our time volunteering, “[It] is important not only because it helps others in our community, but also because it simultaneously connects us with people outside our normal circles. Connecting one-on-one with others is essential for a strong sense of belonging on both sides and is the backbone for a supportive and charitable community.” It supports the child, which supports the family, which then supports the whole community. 97th Floor came to mentor these kids, but we left equally served from the children’s reminder of the happiness and joy that can be found in life.
How many ways can “20” help? 20 isn’t a particularly large number, but in the right context, it can make a big difference in someone’s life.
Last year, 97th Floor sent holiday cards, along with a video, to clients, partners, and friends and encouraged them to set aside $20 to help someone around them. Each card included an additional $20 bill to help them jump start the giving. People could then use the #20helps hashtag to spread the message to others.
This year, in addition to the $20, we are taking it one step further. Instead of focusing specifically on money, we are encouraging everyone who sees this year’s card and video to look for any way in which “20 helps.”
Here are a few ideas, just to get you started:
There are countless possibilities. Remember, 20 may not seem like much… but 20 helps.
This year's card includes the same $20 as last year's, which recipients are asked to use to help someone else, plus two artisan chocolate bars from Taste in Provo, UTHere at 97th Floor, we believe that the best gifts are the ones that provide the recipient with an opportunity to help others. This is why for our holiday card this past December, we created the #20helps campaign. We wanted to be able use our success as a company and as individuals to help others. More than that, we wanted to inspire our clients, partners, friends, and anyone else who might be interested, to join in the spirit of charity, and to give back a little something to help those in need. You can read more about our holiday card here.
The holiday card was also a hint at some of our big plans as a company for 2015. Last year was the year that our company really came into its own. To accommodate our extraordinary growth, we moved into a new and better office. We upgraded our equipment to take better advantage of recent technological advances. We created and filled several new positions in order to further improve our overall performance. However, for 2015, we feel as though we need to mature as a company and start helping others. So, at our company holiday celebration last month, we announced our plans to become much more heavily involved with charitable organizations in 2015.
The first aspect of our plan is to donate 1% of our gross revenue to charity. Based on our projections, we estimate that this will mean $65,000 donated by our company to charities in 2015. Each employee of 97th Floor will be able to select a charity of their choice, and 97th Floor will donate a portion of the 1% to that charity. The 1% pledge was inspired by Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce. To learn more about The Salesforce Foundation and their 1% model, go here.
Charitable organizations are always happy to accept monetary donations, but sometimes the donation that does the most good, is a donation of service. The second phase of our 2015 charity plan is to provide a substantial amount of pro bono work for these organizations. We’ll be doing this by bringing on charities as we would normal clients, however, the work that we do for them will be done completely free of charge. We’ll have two charities as clients at all times, and we’ve already built a team at 97th Floor dedicated to service these charities. Our first two charity clients are both local organizations headquartered here in Utah: The Road Home (helping people step out of homelessness and back into the community) and United Way of Utah County Women’s Leadership Council (promoting programs that empower children). 
We have a great deal of respect and admiration for both organizations and for what they do for the communities in which we live and work, and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship. We are just getting started, but over the next few months, expect to see some great things coming from these partnerships! The work itself that we’ll be donating in 2015 is equivalent to $360,000.
Above all, we realize that it’s our amazing clients that keep us in business and allow us to give back to the world that has given us so much. To quote President John F. Kennedy, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." We believe that brands work with us because of the results we’re able to help them achieve. However, we also believe that people do business with people. Through our ongoing charity efforts, we intend to focus on the human side of digital marketing, and to improve not only our clients’ businesses, but also the lives of those with whom we come into contact. Thank you for partnering with us on your digital marketing efforts!
