Meeting News Magazine – January 28, 2008
"Impact 4 Good Makes Socially Conscious Teambuilding Fun, Easy"
by Elizabeth West
East Hanover, NJ – With tight program schedules, finding time to give back to the community during a meeting can be a real challenge. But teambuilding services provider Impact 4 Good has found a way to help groups contribute – even from the confines of a hotel – in just two hours. The company specializes in socially conscious teambuilding initiatives and has created compact activities that support communities in need worldwide.
“We wanted to create community service experiences that could happen in the ballroom,” said Alan Ranzer, executive director of Impact 4 Good, which has served Citibank and Cisco Systems, among others.
Activities are customizable and range from assembling bicycles and Big Wheel tricycles for local Ronald McDonald House Charities to constructing beehives that are donated to bee farmers in Louisiana affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
“We’ve created all of these activities that are in a two-hour format. They allow a company to give back locally, even if they can’t leave the [meeting] property,” added Ranzer.
In one Impact 4 Good activity, teams work together to construct personalized housewarming gifts for donation to Habitat for Humanity beneficiaries. “It’s a way to give back to a great organization that people love and respect – but doing it in a different way,” said Ranzer.
Ranzer stressed that most importantly, the teambuilding activities that Impact 4 Good has created are meant to be fun for groups. “People have a blast,” said Ranzer. “Just because you’re doing community services work, doesn’t mean that it has to be a drag.”