Alan Ranzer, Managing Partner/Co-Founder – Impact 4 Good
For our team at Impact 4 Good and for our clients, philanthropic teambuilding isn’t just about a fun competition that builds team skills and camaraderie. And it’s more than building bookshelves for schools, preparing meals for the hungry, or welcome home backpacks for soldiers. It’s about the engagement between employee, company and community, and the lasting emotional impact made on those who worked as a team to make a donation to those in need.
In our 10+ years of creating truly memorable philanthropic team building events, we always strive to create what we call the ROE, or Return on Emotion, the powerful moment of a team coming together and realizing the positive impact of their combined efforts on an individual or a community. And it is ultimately the ROE that changes hearts and minds, brings teams together, and creates a new awareness to everyone involved.
Take, for example, a client that selected our “Stand Down for Homeless Veterans” program, which donates basic needs/hygiene care kits and blankets to organizations supporting homeless vets. When a representative from the beneficiary organization got up to speak, a former vet himself, and told the story of his emotional journey from active military service, to homelessness, to now working for the very organization that changed his life, he and many others were moved to tears. Hearing his story of hitting rock bottom to finding his way back had a tremendous and emotional impact on the group participating, especially when given the opportunity to donate to the very organization that changed his life.
Another touching and relatable example was the client that selected our “Best Medicine” activity resulting in stuffed animals for children dealing with serious illnesses. They chose the activity because a co-worker had recently lost her child after a heroic battle with heart disease. These co-workers came together with love and heart felt emotion as they created these gifts that would go to other children fighting a similar battle, all to support their boss. This exceptionally moving experience united these groups in a very moving way.
Emotional experiences can be a powerful way to inspire and bring a team together. And when a team can come together and share emotions as they make a tangible difference by donating to those in need, the shared emotional experience can also create cohesiveness as well, that strengthens teams.
ROE is, as it turns out, something of value across the board. Personal connections improve, people connect on a human level, and it reminds us of the things that matter. And people helping people within communities or in the workplace makes for a better world for all of us!
