Team-building and Fundraising

Over the years Cape Medical Supply has made supporting the local non-profit community a cornerstone of our company. We have supported agencies and organizations who continue to make a dramatic impact on the well being and success of our neighbors and we continue to prioritize this type of giving – to us it is more a responsibility than a choice, and it is one we take very seriously. In 2008 we were honored for our longstanding philanthropic commitment to the community, it was a very humbling honor for our entire organization, one we never sought nor expected but which was deeply appreciated.

This year we have taken our fundraising efforts to a new level. In years past it consisted primarily of the company and our officers writing checks to local organizations to support their work, as well as being involved in spreading awareness and helping plan events – that continues to this day, however we have supplemented that with broader efforts which have engaged our entire team and had the unexpected benefit of building a strong level of camaraderie and success amongst those who participated. Our efforts at raising money for this weekends Relay for Life, put on by the American Cancer Society are a great case study in how creative you can be and just how much money you can raise when you engage everyone in the efforts.

Here is a small selection of the work that has been done to raise, to date, well over $3,000: Raffles for paid time off, prime parking spots; pie in the face of the CEO (an alarmingly popular event); auction with all items donated by employees; yard sale for the community; bowling night; sales of Cancer Society stars in our three retail showrooms…the list goes on and our activities committee has done an extremely admirable job of raising money and awareness for the event which promises to be an amazing time for all the team members who will walk over the 24 hour period this weekend.

In short, we have raised a lot of money, but I have also noticed that we raised morale and I think many people learned critical business lessons in the process – the effect marketing has on the success of your event or fundraising, how to sell an idea and get people to believe in it, how to manage groups of people towards a collective effort – these are not things that everyone does on a daily basis, however through our fundraising they have and these lessons are undoubtedly applicable to our overall growth and success and I am thrilled to see them in practice to help us give back to the community and raise money to fight the insidious disease that is cancer.

We have also recently established a foundation to honor my dad, our co-founder…the moneys raised through those efforts will support end of life care and cancer support services in our community and we look forward to putting them to use in the coming years in ways he would have supported and appreciated, and in a way that honors all the great work he did in this community during his time here.

I will be sure to follow-up with how the walk goes this weekend, but I know already there is a lot of energy around the event internally and the activities we all participated in served the purpose of not only raising money for a great cause, but also bringing our team closer together – what a twofer!

Comments