Lily-Twitter-16

 

By Laura Galbraith, Community Engagement Program Manager at Vidyard

 

This piece is shared as part of Pledge 1%’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, which highlights how Pledge 1% members and the business community are coming together as a force for good to combat COVID-19.

 

At Vidyard, we watched as the world quickly joined one another in support amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As a video platform for businesses, located in Kitchener, Canada, we knew there was plenty we could do to contribute to the relief efforts, so we worked together in three key areas to help. In the span of only seven weeks, we’ve made new products available, provided local support and volunteer services to our community, and shared our video expertise with nonprofits and educators so they could feel more confident communicating on video while working remotely. We knew these small efforts would go a long way.  

 

Bringing free video tools to educators, school districts, teachers, and nonprofits

 

We knew we could rally together to make video tools available that would quickly address the struggles that educators and nonprofit organizations were experiencing–staying connected. So our teams moved quickly to launch two tools and made them free during COVID-19 to ease the tension and stress that comes along with the rapid shift to becoming an overnight remote worker: 

 

 

Supporting the community with meal donation, volunteer services, and financial support

 

We knew that tools were important, but we also knew that our support of front line workers and hospitals in our community was needed during this time. To address these needs, we’ve provided vital support through:

 

  • Meal donation: Vidyard is providing meals for health care workers (while also supporting local restaurants), one meal a week for two months, at its local hospital. 
  • Volunteer services: Our local hospitals indicated that there was additional support needed for health care workers: tutoring of their children, dog walking, grocery pick up, lawn care, etc, and Vidyard was able to help organize volunteer supports for these areas. The team also recorded and shared a Thank You video for front line workers to show our appreciation. 
  • Financial support: In addition to meals being provided, Vidyard is also financially supporting local hospitals to help provide PPE protection or emergency supplies needed for staff during this time. 

 

Providing video knowledge, best practices, and tips to nonprofits and educators

 

It’s not all about products or volunteer hours; it’s also about sharing best practices for video use within organizations. This information can be the vital resource for nonprofits struggling to communicate with their teams during a time of transition and change. To help address these areas, Vidyard is supporting in a few key areas: 

 

  • Outreach Support for Educational Institutions: Vidyard is supporting local schools and outreach programs by sharing best practices, tips, training and tools that show how video can be used to ease communication between students, mentors, and teachers. Vidyard is also helping to support local student outreach programming groups to find ways they can continue their programming, virtually through the use of video. 
  • Community Support Services: Vidyard has helped a variety of local nonprofits, who serve our communities most at risk; sharing additional access to video tools so they can better communicate both internally within their organization and externally with donors, staff, and volunteers. 

 

We are incredibly thankful to have such a powerful team of frontline workers helping to keep this community safe, and we hope these ideas help to inspire other technology organizations to consider how they too can share their time, talents, and treasures to help combat COVID-19.