‘Tis the season for gratitude and generosity. With Thanksgiving around the corner, Poll Everywhere looks back on all that we are grateful for in 2019. From exciting product updates to new teammates, and all of our loyal customers, we have many reasons to be grateful. Gratitude breeds generosity, and as the holidays approach, giving back is top of mind. It’s no different here at Poll Everywhere. We’re proud of the culture we’ve built. It’s one based on inclusivity, authenticity, and giving back to our community. We see giving back as a year-round activity, which is why it’s woven into our company culture and our workdays. Beyond the benefit it provides to our local communities, it also enriches our team by providing a valuable learning experience.
From food, toy, and supplies drives to donations, recycling resources, and professional development programs, we have run the gamut of giving back. Let’s reflect on these wonderful memories:
Boys & Girls Club of America school supply drive
As back-to-school season was approaching, Poll Everywhere chose to participate in our local Boys and Girls Club’s school supplies drive. The Boys and Girls Club’s mission is to inspire young people to be productive citizens by providing a fun and engaging space for youth to build a bright future. Poll Evians in our San Francisco office dedicated a Friday afternoon to arranging small gift bags with various school supplies such as pens, index cards, and notebooks. The bags were quick to put together and a few Poll Evians drove across the Bay to deliver the supplies to the Boys and Girls Club in Alameda. Kimberly Harris, Head of Talent Acquisition at Poll Everywhere, says “I firmly believe in Muhammad Ali’s quote, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” I love that Poll Everywhere believes in giving back to the community…” The experience was close to Kim’s heart because she attended and tutored at her local Boys and Girls Club in her town. We are glad that our team had the opportunity to give back to organizations that are close to their hearts.
La Casa de Las Madres
During our 2018 holiday party, we assembled gift baskets for the families in partnership with La Casa de las Madres, an organization dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic violence. They provide tools and shelter to help survivors transform their lives and educate individuals on how to identify abuse and increase public awareness to prevent future violence. Poll Everywhere purchased materials and built special holiday baskets filled with goods requested by the assigned families. Shibo Fang, Poll Everywhere’s Front End Engineer, says the experience was “rewarding that we spent time together contributing to doing good outside of our own organization.” We hope to continue bringing these heartwarming experiences to our company.
Toys for Tots
Nothing beats the joy of receiving presents during the holidays! In order to spread this joy, we participated in a toy drive for San Francisco Firefighters Toys for Tots program. The program placed toy collection barrels in various San Francisco office buildings for all tenants to participate. Thoey Bou, Poll Everywhere’s People Operations Manager, noticed that our building’s bin was very empty. In an effort to encourage Poll Evians to donate, Thoey set a hard donation deadline and sent regular reminders to donate. “It was simple and easy as the organizer,” says Thoey, “Simple announcements were enough to get a great turnout. The cart went from zero to full.” Poll Evians were able to gather old and new toys to donate and Poll Everywhere purchased new toys to share. Participating in a local toy drive is a simple but rewarding way to celebrate the holidays and share the fun of gift-giving.
Tacolicious
One of the incredible perks of working at Poll Everywhere is the daily catered lunch in the San Francisco office. To switch things up and give back to the community, Poll Everywhere swapped our regular catered lunch for Tacolicious. The Tacolicious School Project, in partnership with Rooftop Schools, is a program designed to donate profits from a catered lunch to San Francisco public schools. The goal of the project is to better public education. Giving back doesn’t have to be a huge operation; finding small ways we can donate in our daily lives is just as impactful.
Hardware donation
As a technology company, Poll Everywhere uses a lot of hardware such as laptops, monitors, keyboards and more. What do we do with the old hardware? Traditionally, we collect old hardware and trade it in through Apple’s trade-in program or dispose of it through e-waste. However, this year we chose to donate old but functioning laptops to local organizations. This is a great way to ensure that the hardware gets the most out of its lifespan and we don’t contribute excess waste to the environment.
SFUSD Career Pathways partnership
Poll Everywhere is dedicated to giving back to the community all year round. One of the ways we give back is by mentoring young students through job shadows. As an industry partner of SFUSD’s Career Pathways program, we host annual job shadows for local high school students. The students visit our San Francisco office, have lunch with our team, participate in a marketing panel, and leave with professional resume and LinkedIn tips. One student from this program noted that job shadow programs should incorporate more activities. To make our job shadow experience more engaging, we used various polls to encourage student participation. Students asked our marketing team questions during the panel using an open-ended poll and chose their favorite caption during our version of a ‘Caption this’ game. Through this program, we hope to continue educating students about STEM careers for years to come.
Junior Poll Evian program
Poll Everywhere’s informal mentorship program is the Junior Poll Evian program. This program offers a range of job shadowing opportunities to Junior Poll Evians in high school or college who are interested in exploring career options in technology companies. Students have the opportunity to shadow technical and non-technical roles at Poll Everywhere. Tailored specifically to the needs of the student, the program allows the student to get hands-on experience. Our team gets to embody our cultural values of growth and develop mentorship skills. This program is our way of giving back in a meaningful way that goes beyond material possessions like food or toys. Through this program, Poll Everywhere shares our most valuable assets – our time and expertise, leaving a lasting impact on the next generation of leaders.
Poll Everywhere is grateful to have had such a wonderful year of giving back in 2019. We will continue to find even more innovative ways to incorporate giving back into our daily work in 2020. There are many small ways to make an impact and we hope we’ve inspired you to do the same.
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