In marketing, hashtag holidays (#NationalDonutDay anyone?) are super fun to post about on social media. The challenge is often to find a way to tie it to our clients, their values, and their businesses.

Random, or Not So Random, Acts of Kindness

This time last year, our team began thinking of ideas and ways to celebrate #RandomActsofKindnessDay, celebrated on February 17 each year. When we started looking at how this hashtag reflected on our company values, we decided what we should do.

One of our most important values is no one ever went broke by giving. So instead of just having one day of Random Acts of Kindness, we wanted to put some intention behind our acts of kindness, and we wanted it to go further than a simple hashtag holiday. That’s how our Not So Random Acts of Kindness Campaign began.

Christmas of 2020 was smack in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of our traditional Christmas gift of IPSM branded cookies to our clients who were for the most part working remote, we decided to donate to a nonprofit of their choice.

Because our clients are generous, caring people, we wanted to give back to nonprofits that they supported. We decided that for Not so Random Acts of Kindness Campaign, we would revisit some of the nonprofits that we had donated to back in December of 2020 and give back to the community in a bigger, more meaningful way. And because most of the nonprofits we worked with often don’t have the resources to market themselves, we crafted marketing campaigns to help them share all the incredible things they were working on.

Some of our pet projects

To launch our campaign, IPSM selected one of our own favorite non-profits, FISH (Friends in Service Helping), which is an organization focused on helping those in need in rural Northern Nevada communities. Renee, our CEO, has served on its board in the past and is very familiar with the many ways FISH contributes to our community.

Following FISH, we worked with CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates, of Carson City. CASA provides training for volunteers who help guide children through the difficult process of foster care and family reunification; as well as providing supplies, clothing, and other support to the children in the foster system. We developed videos and stories to help them thank their volunteers for a great year.

After this, we started getting a lot of great requests from other nonprofits.  We learned that while our project was really fulfilling to us, what we really wanted to help all the nonprofits, but in more of a team collaborative effort by building partnerships between clients and other organizations that they could continue helping throughout the year. So, from there, our Not So Random Acts of Kindness campaign changed course.

From May to August 22021, we launched the Roper’s Heating and Air Conditioning Fan Drive in Carson City, in partnership with the KOLOCares annual Fan Drive. Through their customers’ donations, and the donations from the owner, Dirk Roper, Roper’s donated nearly 200 fans to seniors to help them get through the very hot days of summer. Mr. Roper exemplifies our core value of doing for others who do not have the means to purchase his company’s services – and he is very camera shy! He only lets us take his photos so we can raise more donated fans!

In December 2021, we partnered our clients, the East Fork Professional Firefighters Local 3726 and Ropers Heating and Air Conditioning with the Boys and Girls Club of Western Nevada to purchase warm winter sweatshirts for the 550 kids who belong to the Club. We also worked with the East Fork Professional Firefighters in hosting a  Stuff the Boot event with them where we were able to raise just under $10,000 for the Carson Valley Community Food Closet.

What’s next?

In Plain Sight Marketing continues our “Not So Random Acts of Kindness” campaign in honor of Random Acts of Kindness Day, to help support those in need in our communities and to practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty. Each quarter, we strive to bring awareness to local non-profits and raise funds to support them.

During the week of February 24, we’ll be promoting #GiveFFADay, a national day of giving to FFA, an agricultural education organization on behalf of our client, Carson Valley Meats. Karin Sinclair, owner of Carson Valley Meats, is a huge supporter of ag education, not only because it helps raise up the next generation of ranchers and food producers, but because it teaches kids life lessons, like how to care for an animal, budgeting, business and responsibility. Read more about Karin’s love of ag education groups like FFA, 4-H and Grange, on her blog.

“We strongly believe in working to make our communities better places to live, work, and play,” Renee Plain, CEO of IPSM, said. “We want to find a way to support those who need it the most in our own neighborhoods. Local non-profits work tirelessly to help others and we want to help support their efforts to help strengthen our communities, which is one of our core values as a company.”