Tag: employee campaign

Company Culture that Creates Change: Texas Mutual

“Now let me start from the beginning,” Teresa Martinez, Texas Mutual Project Management, and Analysis Supervisor said. After leaving home at a young age Teresa found herself, a 17-year-old who didn’t finish high-school, working at Target with a young son at home and looking for more.   “I happened to notice a sign that read if you’re a youth and you are interested in something more than just your average job, call this number,” Teresa said. “So, I called the number on the sign and after going in and talking with counselors at the program, I called Youth Employment Services and found out that I qualified for help.”   Youth Employment Services, at the time, was a funded partner of United Way. The program helped her work towards her GED, obtain a driver’s license and most significantly, helped her get her son into childcare with Any Baby Can – a United Way affiliated partner. “That was my first introduction to United Way,” Teresa said.   Change-maker   As a 19 year Texas Mutual veteran, Teresa has eight years of United Way campaign coordination under her belt and has once again returned to the campaign as 2017 co-chair. Teresa was the volunteer special events coordinator for the United Way Campaign at Texas Mutual from 2007 – 2013 and during that time, along with the help of passionate coworkers, she organized fundraising events that allowed Texas Mutual Employees to give back to their community in a fun and rewarding way.   In […]

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Each And Every Person Counts: H-E-B Wraps Up 2017 Campaign

What are the fundamentals of fundraising? Just ask H-E-B! In the past five years, H-E-B has donated almost $6.5 million to the Central Texas area, and they just wrapped up their 2017 record-breaking United Way campaign at the end of October. From leadership giving to payroll pledges, all together H-E-B partners raised more than $1.37 million dollars for Central Texans this year. No matter the obstacle or odds, H-E-B’s support of our community never falters. And this year they faced a huge obstacle—Hurricane Harvey. When Hurricane Harvey made landfall in August, H-E-B suspended their United Way campaign to focus attention on providing critical disaster relief. United Way services often benefit families in communities that are disproportionately affected by natural disasters like Harvey. Founded with a focus on taking care of people, H-E-B recognizes the need for resources not only in time of disaster, but also day in and day out. Following their disaster response, H-E-B resumed their campaign with amazing energy. They even agreed to extend their campaign to make up for the lost time due to Harvey response. We are so grateful for their invaluable support. After their record-breaking 2017 campaign wrapped up, we spoke with Employee Campaign Leaders at several top performing H-E-B stores to see what they believe enabled their overall success. Through a combination of educating their partners on our mission as well as individual partner’s personal experiences with receiving United Way assistance, each store had their own story of what motivated a successful campaign.  Yami […]

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Recognizing Excellence in Corporate Philanthropy: 2015 Campaign Awards

At United Way for Greater Austin, we run more than 200 employee campaigns in nearly 700 locations in the Austin area. Employee campaigns provide an opportunity for businesses to empower employees to be philanthropists by donating a portion of each paycheck back to the community. Last night, we celebrated and recognized companies who excelled in building philanthropy in our community at our 2015 Employee Campaign Awards. Award winners: Best Practices: Superior Health and Texas Gas This award recognizes the company that implements UWATX’s best campaign practices, which include Senior Officer involvement, access to employees and use of UWATX campaign materials among several others. This year we had two winners for this award. Superior Health kept their campaign at one week to give a sense of urgency; they also planned a week of fun, educational experiences for their employees encouraging them to give. Texas Gas established multiple opportunities for UWATX staff to come and speak to their employees about our work, as well as ran a closed campaign where employee donations were matched 1:1 by their foundation. Community Investment Award: H-E-B The Community Investment Award represents a company or companies who exemplify what it really means to wrap arms around a community to make a significant impact. Anyone who shops at H-E-B realizes it’s not your normal grocery store. This year, H-E-B decided to increase corporate giving to match the generosity of their employees and UWATX experienced a 150% increase in corporate giving. They make philanthropy a part of their culture and host […]

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International Women’s Day Spotlight: Amy Green-Hinojosa

Today is International Women’s Day, a day where women around the world are celebrated for their social, economic, cultural and political achievements. The origins of this day date back to 1908, when female oppression and inequality inspired women to become more vocal and active about gaining better pay and voting rights. We now celebrate this day globally in various ways, ranging from festivals, concerts, female-driven tech conferences and more.  This year, we are celebrating by highlighting one of UWATX’s longtime female supporters, Amy Green-Hinojosa. Not only is Amy a dedicated Women’s Leadership Council member, but she is also an Employee Campaign Leader at her workplace, Texas Mutual. As an Employee Campaign Leader, Amy plays a critical role in leading and inspiring her co-workers and employees to give back to our community through campaign. It is investors, volunteers and community leaders like Amy, and their continuous support, that allow our organization to thrive and make Austin greater. We took some time to chat with Amy about her background and involvement with UWATX and why she is invested in this community. How long have you been involved with United Way and in what capacities? I have been contributing to United Way since I began my adult career, first in California, then here in Texas. I have been an ECL many times in my career. I was active in the Austin Young Leaders Society in my younger days ,and then I transitioned to the WLC. I served on the Executive Committee of WLC for a few […]

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3M Named Top UWATX Employee Campaign

Yesterday one of Austin’s largest companies, 3M, was recognized as United Way for Greater Austin’s (UWATX) number one Employee Giving Campaign. 3M’s total giving amounts to $1,048,341, which includes both employee giving and corporate dollars. UWATX fosters philanthropy in Austin by facilitating giving campaigns, such as this one at 3M, so employees may easily give back to their community with a donation to UWATX or another nonprofit organization of their choice. On June 8, 2015, a 24-hour campaign was held to honor the start of the UWATX campaign. All donations made on that day were doubled by a 3M corporate match of $2 for every $1. Through the remainder of June, 3M matched additional employee pledges $1 for $1. From July 1 through October 31, pledges were matched $0.50 to every $1. In total, 3M employees pledged $347,248.95 in support of local charitable organizations, including UWATX. “3Mers, starting with our executive management and spreading throughout the entire organization, are absolutely committed to the importance of giving back,” Amy Sanders, 3M’s UWATX Campaign Chair, said. “If everyone is willing to stretch a little to give to those less fortunate, collectively, we can have a huge impact on our communities. Because we partner with UWATX, we are confident that the money raised will go to those most in need.” 3Mgives, the company’s philanthropic and volunteerism arm, strives to improve every life through innovative giving in education, community and the environment. UWATX’s efforts parallel 3M’s goal by shaping a community where all individuals can […]

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AT&T Gives Back

AT&T External Affairs employees came by the United Way for Greater Austin office to present their 2014 employee campaign corporate gift check for $70,000. AT&T invited several leaders from their Employee Resource Groups to attend the check presentation and learn more about our work in the Austin community. UWATX runs employee campaigns in more than 400 Austin-based businesses, and AT&T’s employee campaign ranks #5 in terms of how much they raise. City Council member Ora Houston stopped by to thank AT&T employees and UWATX for providing more opportunities to working poor families in Austin. Kevin Rogel, one of our former VPL students and now UWATX donor, thanked AT&T employees for their generosity and spoke about how he has benefitted from UWATX services and why he decided to become a donor after getting hired at his first job. After the check presentation and hearing from Kevin and Ora, the AT&T employees toured our Navigation Center and received an overview of the work done through 2-1-1 calls and Central Health. They learned about the biggest needs in our community, as seen from data from the more than 330,000 calls that are taken every year by our call specialists, and heard firsthand from the specialists about the importance of this call center. Randy Clawson, who leads the Veterans Employee Resource Group at AT&T, was especially inspired by Kevin’s story and the Navigation Center’s work. “I am looking forward to our 2015 campaign and continued partnership with United Way in hopes we can create […]

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You Know It’s Campaign Season When…

You probably hear the phrase “employee campaigns” from UWATX, but if you don’t work in a business that runs campaigns, this phrase can be quite confusing. Employee giving campaigns are how we receive many of our donations throughout the year. Our Development Officers visit multiple workplaces to inform employees about United Way for Greater Austin’s work, help set up fun activities to encourage employees to pledge and coordinate team-building volunteer activities. We make it easy to give in your workplace through payroll deductions; employees sign up during their campaign to give $5, $10 or more per each paycheck for the upcoming year. We asked UWATX Development Officers Heather and Keith to give us an idea of what campaign season feels like to them. Heather says: UWATX runs employee giving campaigns throughout the year, but August through October are the busiest months when most of our corporate partners promote giving to make Austin greater! With running campaigns comes numerous planning meetings, special events, embarrassing challenges, tables of food, jars of pennies and large campaign finales. It’s a great time and one that I and my fellow Development Officers enjoy. These are a few of the ways I know it’s that time of year: 1. Your phone is full of companies’ campaign event photos 2. Your car turns in to the campaign mobile 3. Your friends tell you to quit asking them for money 4. Your wallet always has 2-1-1 cards in it 5. You change your clothes three times in one day – […]

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Interview with Annie Ray, 2015 Campaign Brochure Photographer

We are excited to debut photos from our 2015 Campaign brochure themed “Your Guide to Philanthropy”. Here at UWATX, we believe that the act of giving is what unites our community together. Whether that is through a donation of time or money, we encourage you to build philanthropy in a way that works for you. We had the pleasure coordinating this project with two very talented women, photographer, Annie Ray, and designer, Kathy Horn. Annie Ray is an Austin-based lifestyle photographer who focuses on bringing out the “real stuff” in everything she shoots. She was voted Best Austin Photographer in 2010 and 2011 from the Austin Chronicle. Kathy is a copywriter and creative director who has a diverse skillset and creates print, broadcast and digital projects. Both Annie and Kathy collaborated with their photography and design skills to skillfully capture the uniqueness of the three special UWATX families that were featured in our Campaign brochures.  Latara Clark discussed how volunteering has made a positive impact on her children’s lives and helps strengthen their morals(their photo can be seen on the featured image). James McDonough explains how United Way’s Employee Giving Campaign at his workplace made it easy for him to enroll in automatic payroll deduction and give back to his community. Marisela has witnessed firsthand how the Pre-K program funded by United Way for Greater Austin has been pivotal to her daughter’s development. We had the opportunity to chat with Annie and learn more about her passion for photography, as well as discuss some takeaways she had […]

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Success Story: Kevin Rogel

What do you think of when you hear the word “philanthropist?” This year’s theme for employee campaigns is to “put away your top hats and monocles” and that “anyone can be a philanthropist.” We believe that whether you give $5 a year or $500,000 a year, you are a philanthropist; it is your giving spirit and earnest attempt to better your community that grants you this fancy-sounding title. We could find no better example of this than Kevin Rogel, who graciously agreed to let us share his story. We met Kevin, 16, a few years ago when he was a student at Webb Middle School. He joined our Volunteer Project Leader group, which teaches middle school students to not only give back, but to design and lead their own volunteer projects. While on a tour of the middle school, H-E-B senior vice president Jeff Thomas heard Kevin speak about the program and was impressed with his confidence, philanthropic heart and always positive attitude. Thomas told Kevin later that day, “when you hit 16…look me up” for an open position awaiting him at H-E-B. Mere days after Kevin’s 16th birthday last April, Kevin filled out his application with the help of his mentor and UWATX Director of Volunteer Engagement, Nikki Kruger–and as Thomas promised, he was hired as a Customer Service Associate. Unfortunately, Kevin awoke a few days later in a hospital in San Antonio with more than 40% of his body covered in third-degree burns. While helping his mom cook, he slipped […]

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Accenture Employees Inspire Future Women Leaders

Accenture is one of the top consulting firms in the world that brings first-class business and technology strategy to companies and organizations to carry them into the future. Accenture employees invest in local solutions for our community as well by giving back their time to speak with students who are the future. Just before school let out for summer, the Women’s Employee Resource Group at Accenture took time away from their jobs to pay a special visit to the students at Decker Middle School. The Women’s ERG shared personal stories about their lives, their careers and how they got to where they are today with the students. Accenture employees first spoke with the Decker AVID Class about college readiness before eating lunch and discussing common interests with the Tech Girls Club. Accenture employees not only got to know the students they support through employee campaign better, but also got the chance to inspire each of them by sharing their own unique stories of how they became successful women in the corporate tech world. Katy Aus, UWATX’s Out-of-School Time Coordinator for Target Graduation, said: “Students see their future when professional volunteers come out. The Tech Girls Club all have aspirations of being women in the fast-paced tech field. Accenture volunteers are real models of that and show how you can reach this goal from all different paths.” Decker Middle School is located in Manor ISD and is one of three schools UWATX offers intervention and support services to students through the […]

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