Patti Schom-Moffatt has Karyo Edelman’s people giving like Oprah, only more 
little.

Small is beautiful
Oprah’s Big Give makes good TV. This Little Give does good, and is good for corporate karma – and team-building
By BONNIE IRVING, birving@vlmag.ca

“Giving back” by businesses has become so de rigueur that a new stuffy name has even been coined for it – Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Now, not only are companies responsible to owners and shareholders for making a profit, they also must be responsible for helping to fix the ills of society. It’s a lot to expect.

Having said that, I was struck by a creative CSR project initiated by Patti Schom-Moffatt, co-G.M. of Vancouver public relations firm Karyo Edelman, the largest in town, according to Business in Vancouver. But with 30 staff it’s still small to be giving away $10,000 cash and donating 48 hours of each employee’s time in the name of “giving back.” But not for Schom-Moffatt who considers it an essential part of being in business. “Call it karma, stewardship or being a mentsch, it’s not always easy, but it’s always the right thing to do.”

But let’s back up to when Schom-Moffatt, long known for her social conscience in a business category often accused of schilling for anyone with the dough, stumbled across Oprah’s The Big Give on TV. Contestants were given weekly assignments to make a difference in other people’s lives by spreading around $1 million of Oprah’s kajillions. An ah-ha moment for Schom-Moffatt became The Little Give, in which Karyo Edelman would put up $10,000 cash and employees would donate two days’ worth of their time – free – to four lucky local non-profits working to improve the lives of children and youth. Each team would comprise writers, graphic designers, web designers, strategists, media relations, advertising and branding specialists.

The cash would be “real money,” Schom-Moffatt points out, in the form of company profits out of her and co-G.M. Paul Welsh’s jeans pockets. Says Schom-Moffatt: “To have $10,000 to give, at a profit margin of between 10 to 15 per cent, means that $10,000 represents a whole lot of time – about $100,000 worth. At an average billing rate of say $100 an hour … our Little Give will contribute … 48 hours of time multiplied by the 30 or so staff who will take part.”

On Sunday, June 22 the buzz was palpable at the False Creek Yacht Club as excited employees, some in costumes, prepared to present their team’s strategies to four judges. Prior to D-Day, the 30 non-profits that had applied to The Little Give website had been shortlisted to 10. On Friday, June 20 at 9 a.m., the Karyo gang broke into four multi-disciplinary teams. Each chose a charity from among the 10 as its client – Aunt Leah’s, Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, St. Elizabeth Home and KidSafe Project Society. The teams then rushed off to visit their respective clients and assess the organization’s needs as expressed by the executive directors. Returning to the office, they brainstormed to come up with strategies to benefit their clients that would sway the judges and earn them the coveted Little Give Cup. Only 48 hours to do what might take weeks or months in a normal situation.

And this wasn’t normal. Where was the usual structure? Normally each project has a manager. How would this open-ended process work? Freedom is great but total freedom is scary. Later, some employees said they initially had difficulty adapting to the challenge, despite their bosses’ assurances.

It took the four teams about two hours to make their “five-minute” presentations to the four judges, who reviewed all the efforts and chose the KidSafe team’s strategies as being the most comprehensive in meeting the non-profit’s goals: exposure to potential donors, supplies for the kids, and more volunteers to assist with its work with vulnerable kids from five inner city schools. What they got was TV and radio media coverage with more to come, an e-newsletter template ready to go, a Facebook account to develop a network of volunteers, a documentary video to come, and books and board games for the kids.

But the Big Idea that really wowed the judges was outreach material branded with “show and tell.” As team member Melissa Goveas describes it: “The idea behind the material is to reach out to talented, skilled people in the community and invite them to share their passion/hobby with the children of KidSafe.” To reinforce the message, the team dressed in costumes to show, for example, that a ballet dancer or cook might volunteer to donate time with the kids. The materials developed would be used to selectively target various types of hobbyists.

In addition, KidSafe received in-kind donations of $13,500, as well as the $2,500 cash Karyo Edelman donated to each of the four teams. As executive director Carol White put it in her thank-you speech: “The team came up to the plate and really delivered.”
So what did everyone get out of this? The four non-profits? Easy. Twenty-five hundred dollars each and an arsenal of PR strategies and tactics. The employees? Forty-eight hours immersed in a new kind of teamwork, and a renewed faith in themselves. Schom-Moffatt and Welsh?

Let Welsh tell it:
“We challenged ourselves five years ago to make the move from good to great. … Great happens when a team of people are comfortable and confident knowing that we as a group are better together than we are apart. And knowing that losing one’s ego in a team reaching for something bigger than themselves is more exhilarating than standing out front, alone in the spotlight. The people at Karyo Edleman were great on The Little Give. And they are great each and every day."