The holiday season is in full swing and things are busier than ever at Dobies Health Marketing. Despite all the hustle and bustle, we still manage to find time every year to give back and promote better health in our community through our annual holiday scavenger hunt.
Keeping with tradition, this year’s philanthropic team-building activity incorporated our three-part process for healthcare marketing: Discover, Connect, Promote. Like previous years, we split into teams to solve clues and determine which worthy cause Dobies Health Marketing would be supporting during this season of giving. However, this year’s event had a twist. Instead of traditional clues, each team received only a series of GPS coordinates to find four mystery destinations. The first set of coordinates brought us all to one place to kick off the festivities together – from there, each team hit their coordinates separately.
We used our digital devices and mobile apps to quickly discover the locations. Then we came together at the end of the day to connect the dots and figure out which worthy cause Dobies Health Marketing would donate to in 2015. Turns out, when we unscrambled the first letters in the names of all our scavenger hunt destinations, we formed the word C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-E…and that’s when we learned our company’s annual community give-back funding is going to Cultivate Kansas City this year.
Cultivate Kansas City promotes a healthier, more economically and environmentally sustainable community by creating community-based farms that supply nutritious items to people in and around Kansas City. Promoting nutrition is one of several pillars of health that we plan to embrace more than ever in the coming New Year and beyond, so we are happy for the opportunity to support this cause.
As the newest employee at Dobies Health Marketing—and someone who serves on the Board of Directors for a local nonprofit that focuses on bridging the gap between volunteers and our community—I was inspired to see how much my company cares about giving back and promoting a culture of good health in our city. I recommend all businesses, especially healthcare companies, look for opportunities to support organizations with missions and visions that serve local communities.
By creating a culture of corporate social responsibility and giving to causes that employees are passionate about (e.g. supporting local, healthy food sources), companies boost employee morale and improve connections with members of the community. I encourage healthcare leaders to make time for staff to “give back” each year, regardless of how hectic the office workload may seem. Your employees, customers and community will be better off because of it.