With all the chaos going on in the world, our team wanted to help. In February, we challenged ourselves to another Positive Impact Project. This past month, the project entailed creating a tangible goal to go outside our comfort zone and try something new. In turn, we decided that if everyone achieved their goal, our company would double our donation to a charity of our choice.
Originally, we planned to donate to the Canadian Cancer Society. However, with the recent crisis in Ukraine, our team decided our donation would go to the Canadian Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal.
What are Positive Impact Projects?
One of 1UP’s core values is leaving a positive impact, both internally on our team, and externally on our clients, community, environment, and the world. Positive Impact Projects take this into account and make changes for the better. Some project ideas include: a team-building challenge like a beach clean-up, donating blood, or individual challenges like trying a new hobby and also donating to a charity.
This past month we built individual projects that have left positive impacts on each team member and across the globe. Externally, we donated to help with the crisis in Ukraine. Internally, we pushed ourselves to try something new and go outside of our comfort zone. These are some examples that can be implemented to build on team collaboration, while simultaneously leaving a broader impact.
Benefits of the Projects: Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone
Our team stepped outside of our comfort zones and built motivation outside of work. In turn, this motivation translated into our work. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, to achieve one’s full potential, one must first create a feeling of accomplishment. For us, this sense of accomplishment came from achieving our goals and supporting each other along the way.
Achieving a new goal can bring some light in darker times. February is known as one of the darkest months, not only because of the amount of sunlight during the day, but also mental health-wise. During the very short month of February, our whole team either almost fully or fully completed our individual goals.
To calculate some of the benefits achieved, we completed a quick survey. The following results were conveyed:
- 100% of respondents felt a sense of accomplishment.
- 100% of respondents either liked or loved going outside of their comfort zone.
- 85.7% of respondents felt a positive impact on their mental health.
What Should the Projects be?
The individual goals or challenges can be anything new and challenging to each team member. For example, our team created a variety of ambitious goals as follows:
- David, Digital Marketer: 1 new Binging with Babish recipe per week.
- Julien, COO & Integrator: do yoga once per week.
- Juliet, Executive Assistant: build a woodworking project.
- Mackenzie, Digital Marketer: bake 4 new recipes including 2 pies and 2 cakes.
- Phil, CMO & Visionary: practice and make music 6 times for at least an hour.
- Rafik, Digital Marketer: create, edit, and post Instagram content 5 times a week.
- Sam, Digital Marketing Team Lead: improve mental arithmetic with Math Trainer 4 times per week.
- Sean, Digital Marketer: sew a quilt and a pair of pants.
Watch this short video for all the content!
Why We Donated to the Crisis in Ukraine
Although our team had fun completing our challenges, we have been deeply affected by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and wanted to help those impacted. We chose the Canadian Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal because they offer a wide variety of support needed. This includes: “preparedness, immediate and ongoing relief efforts, long-term recovery, resiliency, and other critical humanitarian activities as needs arise, both in Ukraine and surrounding countries, including supporting populations displaced.”
Further, the Government of Canada is matching donations for Ukraine up to $10 million (CAD) between February 24, 2022 and March 18, 2022. We strongly encourage all organizations and individuals to donate. You can do so here.
Although we felt our donation would have a greater positive impact on Ukraine at this time, we plan to donate to the Canadian Cancer Society for our next Positive Impact Project.
