• Matter’s Helping Hands Program Exceeds Yearly Goal

    Matter’s Helping Hands Program Exceeds Yearly Goal

    Matter’s Helping Hands initiative encourages a nationwide community service effort that is rewarding and fulfilling for all employees. With 1000 plus hours of impactful volunteer work done each year, Matter is truly making an impact on its surrounding communities.
     

    With time to spare, Matter employees surpassed the volunteer goals set for this year:

    • 1,000+ hours volunteered
    • 60+ events held
    • 60+ people met their personal goal of 8 hours
    • For those that met their personal goal, Matter made a monetary donation to the charity of their choice.

    /><br />  </p> <h2>Our 2018 Impact</h2> <p><em>“I just wanted to let you know that Matter’s troop of volunteers were amazing! It is a big job and they knocked it out of the park.  We are so grateful for their time and energy. As I have said before, Matter employees are welcome to help out at Community Giving Tree anytime, we love them!”</em></p> <p><strong>   – Community Giving Tree</strong></p> <p><em>“The team worked so hard this morning and they really made a difference. Thank you!”</em></p> <p><strong>   – Great Bay Discovery Center</strong></p> <p><em>“Your helpers are GREAT. What a lovely team they make. Thank you so much! Matter is such a great help to us!”</em></p> <p><strong>    – The Salvation Army</strong></p> <p><img decoding=On top of our volunteer efforts in our own communities, all of our offices come together to celebrate national days throughout the year including Pride, World Mental Health Day and Unity Day. In the photo below, our employees wore orange to show we are united against bullying.

    /><br />  </p> <h2>Looking Towards 2019</h2> <p>Heading into 2019, we are excited that our employee growth and the addition of a <a href=Pittsburgh office will open the door to new opportunities. To push ourselves further, we have increased our agency-wide hourly goal to 1,200 hours and the goal for each employee to 10 hours.

    /></p> <p> </p> <p><em><strong>Thank you to all of our employees and the organizations we have worked with this year! </strong></em></p> <p> </p> </div> <div class=

    Matter

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  • Matter’s Helping Hands Volunteer Recap for May 2018

    Matter’s Helping Hands Volunteer Recap for May 2018

     

    Matter’s Helping Hands initiative encourages a nationwide community service effort that is rewarding and fulfilling for all of the employees. With 1000 plus hours of impactful volunteer work done each year, Matter is truly making an impact on its surrounding communities. 

     

    203 volunteer hours!

    This past month, Matter employees across five offices reached a combined total of 203 volunteer hours. This brings the current yearly total to 494, (almost!) halfway to the yearly goal of 1000 hours.

    Matter is one of the many companies that offer employees time to volunteer during work hours, a concept becoming known as VTO (Volunteer Time Off). VTO does not cut into an employee’s sick or vacation time; it is a tangible benefit above regular PTO. If you are considering adding VTO to your benefits package, you should know that it is known to aid in recruitment, retention and corporate visibility. In an article in Fortune, it is stated that employees feel a deeper connection and commitment to the work when they get to participate versus there being a corporate donation. This month, Matter employees were thrilled to help make an impact and volunteer with four different organizations.

     

    The Food Project at Wenham Farm

    Employees from the Newburyport and Boston offices volunteered at Wenham Farm, taking part in the Food Project. This group was hard at work outside weeding, planting, harvesting, washing vegetables and cleaning up the farm.

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    Community Food Share

    The Boulder office spent some time at the Community Food Share, an organization that aims to eliminate hunger in Boulder and Broomfield Counties through engagement, collaboration, and leadership. They helped with sorting produce, canned goods, and restocking pantry shelves.

     

    Ronald McDonald House

    A group from Matter Providence went to the local Ronald McDonald House, which acts as a ‘home away from home’ for families whose children are receiving care at local hospitals. The team helped to deep clean three of their temporary resident bedrooms.

    /></p> <p> </p> <h1>Oregon Food Bank</h1> <p>The Matter Portland office worked with <a href=Oregon Food Bank helping to package over 2,000 pounds of food for Portland residents in need.

     

    Nick Murray

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  • Happy National Volunteer Recognition Day!

    Happy National Volunteer Recognition Day!

    It’s been said that “you have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you,” and here at Matter, we agree! With five different offices across the US, each of our offices are involved in the Matter Helping Hands initiative, which aims to give back to local communities through volunteering. In honor of National Volunteer Day, we chatted with our volunteer office leads about their favorite volunteer opportunities, the importance of this program, and how local efforts are impacting communities across the US! Here’s what they had to say…

     

    What does volunteering mean to you?

    Volunteering is so good for the soul and I love to see how my efforts can truly impact the lives of others and can just bring a smile to someone’s face. If I can make one person smile a day, I feel like I had a pretty good day.  Even if it’s just paying it forward at the drive-thru and paying for the person’s coffee behind me or helping an older man/woman load their groceries into their trunks, any extra effort you make, can go a long way to others.

     – Danielle Conlin, HR Manager, Newburyport

    How has volunteering impacted your local community?

    Boulder is a tightknit community and as such, it really works together to give back through days dedicated to cleaning up the local reservoir to walks and runs to help end homelessness. We love being a part of the efforts to make Boulder one of the best places to live!

    – Kaitlyn Ethier, Senior Account Executive, Boulder

    What was your favorite volunteer organization and why?

    My favorite volunteer organization has definitely been the RISPCA (Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). I’m a crazy animal lover (and so is the rest of the Providence office), so being able to help out at a local animal rescue organization is more than just fun, it’s meaningful and rewarding. Being able to greet all the loving adoptable dogs and cats isn’t too bad either, of course! We’ve volunteered with the RISPCA twice in the past year, and I’m already looking forward to going back soon!

    – Gina Fergione, Assistant Account Executive, Providence

    What does volunteering mean to you?

    Volunteering has always been a big priority for me and it has been such a great experience being able to lead the Helping Hands effort in our office. Participating in volunteer events gives me the opportunity to make an impact on the lives of others in a positive way and give back directly to my community. Through volunteering I have been introduced to organizations I never knew existed and gotten to know the incredible people who lead them, which I am very grateful for.

     – Kelsey Williams, Assistant Account Executive, Portland

    If you could work for any nonprofit, who/what would it be and why?

    If I could work for a non-profit I would love to support the Doctors Without Borders organization. Doctors Without Borders provides aid to families and children suffering from natural disasters, famine, and those seeking safety from political unrest. I’ve always admired the courage its volunteers have to venture to even the most remote areas to bring help to those who need it the most.

    – Miriam Brito, Assistant Account Executive, Boston

    Tell us a little more about the Helping Hands Initiative.

    Giving back to our community has been a core tenet for our CEO,Scott Signore, and Matter long before we formalized our Helping Hands initiative. But now we’re more organized and effective, and our passion for doing the right thing is only growing stronger every year.

    – Mandy Mladenoff, President of Matter

    We’re already halfway to our agency goal of 1,000 hours of volunteering before the end of the year with many great events in the queue including the Jeanne Geiger Walk Against Domestic Violence (Newburyport), the 5K/Home Run for the Homeless at Coors Field (Boulder), American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure and Grow Portland, among others! Please join us in commending our fantastic employees and office leads who continue to make this initiative an office-wide success! Stay tuned for more volunteer updates throughout the year!

    Matter

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  • An HR Perspective on a Successful Company Volunteer Initiative

    For an HR professional working at a PR agency, I’m embarrassed to admit- but I’m no expert on blog posts (this is actually my first one ever so I hope I do my colleagues proud!)

    I started at Matter six months ago and was asked to lead our Helping Hands Matter Initiative (aka our amazing volunteer program). I was already excited to take on my new role as HR Manager and to join Matter, but to be asked to lead such a great initiative was a bonus.  I’ve always enjoyed volunteering in some capacity, but never truly knew how passionate I was about giving back until I started working at Matter as it is engrained in the culture here.

    Throughout the Matter website, you can visually see that Matter is committed to making a difference to those in need. Our efforts are encouraged by the motto People in need matter. Helping hands matter.  To see this written is one thing, but to actually witness the dedication, support and enthusiasm across all five of our offices has been beyond amazing and quite frankly- heartwarming to see. Some of our activities have included (but trust me this is not an all-inclusive list): volunteering at homeless shelters, sponsoring and serving meals to local communities, donating time at animal shelters, organizing supply drives for local communities, to all five of our offices participating in a walk to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis.

    You might be wondering how all of our employees and all of our offices are involved in this program. Every employee is encouraged to submit suggestions to the Helping Hands committee at any time. Each office has an AWESOME lead for this initiative and they meet with the committee members on a monthly basis to discuss any submitted suggestions and approve what organizations we will be supporting and/or sponsoring for the upcoming months. Currently, we have events booked through July!

    We have an agency goal of 500 hours by the end of 2016 and I’m happy to report that with just four months into the year we crossed the 300-hour mark at the end of April.  For a company with approximately 120 employees, this is an incredible accomplishment and I am 100% confident we will surpass the 500-hour mark well before the end of the year (if we don’t, I will write another blog admitting I was wrong!).

    Month after month, I am blown away by the excitement and support that this program has received and am forever thankful to Matter and our employees (now this blog is turning into a love letter) for making me realize one of the things I am most passionate about in life- giving back and making an impact in the lives of those in need.

    As Dr. Loretta Scott once said “we can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”

    Matter

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  • How Doing Good in Online Video Can Help Your Brand Do Well

     

    I find all too often that companies are using online video as a means to hammer home their services, products, values, and messaging- and just that. We all know the stats about how video is an engaging way to showcase what your business can do, but unless you’re the creator of an exciting new consumer tech product or are offering a deal that’s almost too good to be true, who is going to share your visual message with their friends? In a digital world where social media is king, you need to be continuously thinking about the connection your video is making to basic human emotions. I believe that these philanthropic initiative videos have incredible shareability.

    There seems to be a trend we’ve been noticing here in the office where videos that showcase a brand’s effort to do good in its community are able to trigger that warm and fuzzy feeling to its audience. I think brands need to stop thinking of Facebook feeds as a place where it can just upload glorified TV commercials, with hopes that people will flock to its website and buy more stuff. Taking a stance on a social issue and contributing to a good cause is equally or maybe more powerful. Notice how in the Tim Horton’s video they never mention how inexpensive the coffee is, or how good the muffins taste? Sammy the Explorer never talks about how Hurley’s surfboards are going to help you ride out that wave that is 10 feet overhead. They just want you to see that they’re making an effort to brighten an unsuspecting person’s day, or make the world a better place.

    I think a company should first think about who are its consumers, and what they care about. Do they care about the environment? Poverty? Then, create a video that showcases how your initiative affects people; how it makes them feel. It is crucial to focus on the emotions of the people in the video, without littering it with your company’s logo and branding. Even at the end, directing the audience to a microsite where they can learn more about your cause seems to be the way to go. Just don’t try and sell them anything just yet.

    My main takeaway from these volunteering/philanthropic brand videos is that it’s equally as effective to win people through their hearts, and not necessarily the lowest price point or clever slogan. Make viewers feel good on the inside, and they’ll be forever yours.

    Matter

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