Progrexion and their associated brands have been hosting Summer Business Food & Fund Drives since 2012. You’ll often hear us ask for three things: food, time and money—Progrexion supports us in all three areas. In addition to financial support, they send their employees to volunteer on a regular basis and also host food drives in their offices.
Since Progrexion began their partnership with us in 2012, they have donated the equivalent of close to 964,000 meals and their employees have spent 694 hours volunteering for us. Their phenomenal success is due in part to their innovative ways of approaching community giving. They have found what does and doesn’t work when asking their 2,000+ employees to all rally in the fight against hunger. Because their employees come from a broad range of backgrounds and span a broad range of job duties, they provide multiple ways to engage allowing everyone to feel comfortable participating in some way. Here are just some of the fun ways they are driving participation this year:
- Giving Wall: inspired by the campaigns you often see in grocery stores, employees can sign their name on a “Progrexion Buck” and tape it to the wall. This has created great buzz amongst their staff because people want to see their names on the wall next to their peers.
- Carnival Games: They host a weekly carnival game on each floor to offer a fun way to encourage cash donations. Each game is focused around using a $1 bill to participate, such as their Airplane To$$, in which employees made paper planes out of $1 bills. The employee whose airplane flew the furthest on each floor received a “Golden Food Can,” essentially a trophy made of a can of food painted gold with their logo on it. It’s amazing to see just how much bragging rights can create some healthy competition!
- Executive Match: More traditional in nature, their executive team has agreed to match employee donations. Less traditionally, as a motivation tool, the employees have to hit a certain amount before this match kicks in and the match is coming out of the Executive Team’s pocket!
- Partner and Vendor Donations: Progrexion works with many partners and vendors and have reached out to them to see if they are willing to help. They have seen great success with this tactic for several years now because their vendors want to do what’s necessary to keep their business!
- Dress Down: Employees in certain functions can purchase “dress-down” days by donating. This is always a popular way to get employees in an office setting to participate!
- Alignment with Guiding Values: Progrexion’s six Core Guiding Values focus on strong company performance, personal development, working as a team and helping those in need. Because of this, community impact is at the heart of their culture and events such as the Summer Fund & Food truly resonate with their employees!
We hope these ideas are something your business may be able to apply to this year’s food and fund drive, or any that you may host in the future! Remember, our Summer Business Food & Fund Drive runs through the end of August, so there is still plenty of time to organize and host a food and fund drive in your workplace. Summer is the most critical time of need, and just like hunger, businesses don’t take a summer break. Thank you to Progrexion for your continued support and we can’t wait to see this year’s results!
