To quote an old friend, "we're super excited" to congratulate Family Giving Tree for being this year's participating ZURBwired nonprofit! Competition was fierce this year and the ZURB team had to choose only one nonprofit from a slew of excellent proposals. We want to thank all the excellent nonprofits that submitted proposals.
When it came to making the final selection, the Elves at Family Giving Tree had that right combination of mission, clear goals, high energy and zaniness that we were looking for in a nonprofit. And after four years of submitting proposals and not getting selected, we're pleased that their persistance has finally paid off!
Family Giving Tree staff in a sea of toys during their annual Holiday Toy Drive.
We were impressed with Family Giving Tree's overall mission of ensuring kids get gifts and the school supplies they deserve. A mission that began life, believe it or not, as a San Jose State MBA class project in 1990. The assignment: "create a program that adds value to someone else's life." That value was providing holiday gifts to 300 children in East Palo Alto. Since then Family Giving Tree has grown to providing not only gifts, but backpacks and school supplies as well to more than 900,000 kids across the Bay Area. This year, they're poised to celebrate the millionth child they've helped!
We're excited to help them celebrate that wonderful acheivement. And the Elves are also excited.
The Elves are excited to partner with the ZURBwired team to launch a new website and highlight a big milestone for our organization; one million children's wishes fulfilled! We are prepping coffee pots and stocking up on Diet Coke in order to prepare ourselves for 24 hours of creative brainstorming, web design, marketing campaigns and collaboration!Jennifer "Queen Elf" Cullenbine, executive director and co-founder
And the folks at Family Giving Tree are giving their all to ZURBwired. They're practically bringing a majority of their team to work alongside us ZURBians. They'll be working the trenches with us for 24 hours starting on Aug. 2 at 8AM and going until 8AM on Aug. 3.
In those 24 hours, we'll be working to help Family Giving Tree reboot their website and create a marketing game plan for their "Millionth Child" campaign, as Jennifer says. Can we pull it off? We have in the past and we're sure as heck game to do it again with the Elves at our side.
Using our unique design methods and goal-oriented teamwork, we believe that we can do it in a 24-hour timeboxed creative burst. The philosophy behind ZURBwired is that anybody should be able to breakthrough a design hump and create something of value for those they serve. With Family Giving Tree, we not only want to focus on their goal for this 24 hours, but also give them the tools to continue creating great stuff for years to come.
We're also still looking for a few good volunteers to join us for the madcap 24 hours. If you're interested, email us at wired@zurb.com.
