Give Back: Envista
In the spring of 2019, Tara Dimick, chief business development officer at Envista Credit Union, and Tim Kolling, senior marketing consultant at Alpha Media, came up with a collaborative fundraising challenge for nonprofit agencies to enhance their visibility and promote additional community contributions through media exposure they would not otherwise have been able to afford.
Dimick enlisted Kolling’s assistance in parlaying a sizable media buy that Envista had that sponsored a national organization into monthly segments featuring local agency interviews as a complement to the credit union’s storytelling promotional approach.
“With our national sponsorship media buy, I just kept coming back to where my heart is and that’s here in our community,” she said. “Tim took the time to listen and helped us find a workable solution to showcase our recipients as well as our credit union.”
Each recipient receives $10,791 in on-air advertising across four stations: Country 106.9, 94.5 Country, 580 WIBW and 98.5 Jack FM. Additionally, agencies benefited from news conferences, three billboard placements and Envista’s website, email and social media promotion.
“Just like our nonprofit partners, we’re always asking ourselves how we can maximize our budget and make dollars go further,” said Dimick. “I love stories, so giving agencies the chance to have an executive, board member or service recipient tell a story on air about an agency’s impact is really gratifying.”
ENVISTACARES CHALLENGE
The EnvistaCares Challenge launched in April 2019 with the credit union’s commitment to provide $2,500 in matching funds to each participating agency. Envista selected the first few organizations from its membership and suggestions from employees serving on boards.
“We originally planned to launch in May, but we discovered through LifeHouse Child Advocacy Center, our first agency, that April was child abuse prevention month so we moved up our timetable,” said Dimick. “Since then we’ve tried to fit agencies with months that make sense with their mission.”
For example, this year Junior League of Topeka was featured in October because of its five-day Little Black Dress initiative to promote awareness for generational poverty and community instability.
Other organizations have joined the effort to boost funds for their favorite agencies too. Kona Ice donated a portion of its proceeds from area businesses that it visited during a month featuring Junior Achievement of Kansas, an organization that provides age-appropriate business instruction in area schools.
“What really got the numbers to go up was when agencies like the YWCA , Doorstep and the Jayhawk Theatre got other matching challenge gifts for their month,” Dimick said. “It’s fun to work with enthusiastic organizations as they figure out ways to come up with new dollars and then step in and be a part of making the magic happen.”
In 2019, Envista Credit Union donated $22,500 to nine agencies that raised an additional $132,372.87. This year, as of September the credit union has contributed $17,500 to seven agencies combined with $137,683.24 in funds they raised for a total of $155,183.24. To date, the two campaigns have raised $287,556.11 .
A COMMUNITY PARTNER
The EnvistaCares Challenge exemplifies the credit union’s core values of integrity, impact, unity, passion and exceeding expectations.
“We hope people see us as a community partner they can trust,” Dimick said. “We’re always evaluating how we can serve the community better and not just do what we’ve always done.”
Although concerns about COVID-19 prompted Envista to move its April 2020 recipient to December, the EnvistaCares Challenge resumed in May with the Race Against Breast Cancer.
“We didn’t want to pause the program very long because a lot of agencies needed funds to continue doing their work,” she said. “We moved news conferences to video and did some fun launches with a virtual torch passing hands to continue highlighting the initiative so agencies wouldn’t lose momentum in raising money for their services.”
Envista is currently evaluating whether the EnvistaCares Challenge will extend into 2021.
