Growing our Impact
Last year, we donated nearly $90,000 in services to nonprofits within our community. This year, we want to grow our impact. While we certainly will never turn down help to anyone changing the world, our 2021 goal is to focus on organizations doing great work to end environmental racism. Inspired by Kiara Reed—a past team member and current Executive Director of WALK Sacramento, an organization working to create a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable Sacramento region—our team is dedicated to making this the year we connect and work with organizations doing great work for environmental justice.
But the impact won’t stop there! After some internal brainstorming, we think we figured out the perfect solution to growing our philanthropic impact right here in Sacramento.
Philanthropic Giving Strategy
If 2020 showed us anything, it showed the power of local organizations. Activist and politician Stacy Abrahams illustrated just how impactful nonprofits can be, especially when they never give up. We want to honor her hard work by helping Sacramento’s nonprofits have access to world-class services and funding by our fellow small businesses.
That’s why in addition to matching our donated services from 2020, we have decided to offer a new service: philanthropic giving strategy. Many of our clients come to us looking for a way to strengthen their connection to the local community. We often suggest that they take our own simple approach: help anyone who needs it. Our founder and Chief Jugger, Tina Reynolds, unwittingly built Uptown Studios’ entire clientele base by offering her help (for free) to anyone who asked for it. Over time, the help she gave people allowed them to grow. And eventually, when they needed a new website or a new marketing strategy to accommodate their growth, they intentionally choose to work with us. While reflecting on our 2020 impact, we realized that just encouraging our clients to give philanthropically wasn’t enough. We could make an even bigger impact by providing a framework for exactly how any business or entity could give back to the community.
Compound Giving
With the launch of this new service, we hope to not only educate many different business owners and influential controllers on the benefits of investing in the local community (because trust us, the list of benefits is unending!), but we also hope this will allow us to help facilitate a massive increase of donated funds throughout the Sacramento small business and nonprofit community. There are many amazing nonprofits right here in Sacramento that could use a boost. By investing directly into our community, not only do we build trust with each other, but we are also helping nonprofit organizations strengthen their ability to provide life-saving services to the people within our community.
Volunteering
Last year, our team logged 255 volunteer hours. This year, we are hoping to double our numbers. We are already off to a great start! At the time of writing this article, our entire team has already logged 130 volunteer hours. Volunteering within our team looks like many different things. Since in-person volunteerism is on pause, our team has switched its focus to donate our time as board members, youth advisors, or commissioners to various organizations right here in Sacramento. We hope to virtually see you around!
These are big, abstract goals for a single year. But, we’re confident we can get them done. In fact, let’s start right now! If your organization has been wanting to find a way to invest in the local community, send us a message. We’ll help you get started right away.
