By the team at LoSoMo.
When our founder, Scott Romney, first heard of the 1% Pledge through a contact at Salesforce last year, it immediately resonated with his desire to make a difference as a business owner. He brought the idea back to our team, and we all jumped on board and took the pledge on May 25, 2016. Then, we began brainstorming ways to implement the 1% Model at LoSoMo Inc.
As a digital marketing agency that focuses on local businesses, we have a unique perspective on interacting with those around us, and we knew we wanted to incorporate our space, our skill set, and our local community into our pledge. When we decided to donate 1% of our profits to a local South Florida non-profit organization, we reached out to our community for nominations the best way we know how—on social media.
By calling out our community on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we reached over 19,000 community members and received over 250 nominations of South Florida nonprofits! It was a thrill to see so many interact, share, and nominate organizations that they felt deserved our 1% donation.
On December 15th, we put all the nominations into a random generator and selected a winner, on Facebook Live, of course! We were so pleased to donate 1% of our 2016 profits to Speak Up For Kids Palm Beach County, an organization that supports the Guardian Ad Litem Program to advocate for and protect the lives of children in the dependency (including foster care) system - facilitating their development, ensuring their right to a safe and permanent home, and building their future.
In addition to our pledge to Speak Up, we were also able to give away a brand new website to Redland Rock Pit Abandoned Dog Project, Inc. as 1% of our Product. While taking advantage of social media was an awesome and effective approach for one piece of our pledge, we wanted to involve our team and the causes they support too.
If you come to our office on any given day, there’s a good chance you’ll meet Lola, Theodore, Kota, or Ponce.
No, they aren’t interns, they are a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, a Catahoula Leopard Dog, a Bichon, and a Chihuahua! That’s right, every day is bring your dog to work day at LoSoMo, and none of us are complaining. Animal rights are important to our team, so when the opportunity arose to giveaway a new website to a nonprofit dedicated to saving abandoned animals in South Florida, we said YES! It was a privilege to design a new site for an organization whose cause was so dear to our hearts.
We would like to thank the Pledge 1% organization for inspiring us to give back in a very tangible way and creating a platform that allows us to put our unique spin on making a difference. The entire LoSoMo team looks forward to finding more creative ways to donate our time, product, and profits for 2017.
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
