Millions of people around the world don’t know where their next meal will come from and in the midst of a global pandemic, this unfortunate fact is amplified—limiting people’s access to human interaction, transportation, income, schools, and ultimately food.
With this added complexity of COVID-19, many people are struggling to feed their families, placing children at the most vulnerable to food insecurity. In response, UserTesting and its UT CARES team launched a Squash Hunger campaign to motivate and incentivize employees to take action and support those in need.
UserTesting’s Squash Hunger campaign
At UserTesting, UT CARES is our grassroots volunteer force. As an employee-driven, company-backed, and community-obsessed group, we’re passionate about making a difference in our communities. It was obvious that something needed to be done about food insecurity, so we launched our Squash Hunger campaign.
Through the campaign, employees were encouraged to donate to a 501(c)(3) food charity of their choice, and each donation would be matched through the program.
Over the course of two months, we were able to raise 5x our initial goal, completing the campaign with a total of $34,540.86. And through our donation matching program, we were able to match $17,028.85 of the funds, bringing the grand total to $51,569.71 for helping people in need worldwide.
According to the Atlanta Community Food Bank, $1 in donations is able to provide four meals to those in need—meaning we provided 206,278 meals in only two months.
Extending our commitment to good through charitable giving
To compliment our volunteer force (UT CARES) and our product for good (One World), we wanted to create another branch of Social Impact that touched monetary donations specifically.
Launched in the summer of 2020, the Charitable Giving Program is a program that provides a grant each quarter to a nonprofit or charitable organization worldwide to further its mission. The program’s first two grant recipients were mRelief, a nonprofit working to increase access to SNAP benefits (food stamps), and CaringBridge, a global nonprofit social network dedicated to helping family and friends communicate with and support loved ones during a health journey. Companies like these are using the funds to continue to build on their missions to support communities in need.
Organizations interested in applying for one of the quarterly grants for 2021 can apply here.
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About the author:
Corey is a People Experience and Social Impact Strategist at UserTesting with a passion for social impact initiatives. She currently leads the UT CARES group (volunteer-based impact) and chairs the Charitable Giving Committee while helping UserTesting scale and grow the People team.
