Need a professional test? Try CreateAthon.

  • Written by Julie Turner

It’s easy to say yes to giving 24 hours of your marketing whiz (and life) to benefit local nonprofits through CreateAthon. But once you’re an official volunteer, that’s when the squirrelly feelings can start creeping in. CreateAthon co-founder and long-time creative director Cathy Monetti has calmed 15 CreateAthons-worth of terrified writers and designers. Just take a deep breath, she assures, what’s inside you can power a world of good.

First-time volunteers smell of terror as they walk into that First CreateAthon Morning meeting. Sure, there’s the “do-gooder” smile you always see, a fake it ‘til I make it confidence. But it’s just a mask that belies the gnawing questions lurking there under the surface; the immense self-doubt faced by every CreateAthon novice, everywhere:

What will it be like to do this much work in 24 hours?
What if the ideas don’t come?
What if the idea sucks?
What if I freeze-up completely?
Can I even stay awake?

What if I’m a hack, and the world finds out?

Then, 24 magical hours later, that same newbie stands in front of a nonprofit client, a client who is immensely grateful, one who has just been handed a custom strategy with smart planning and gorgeous design that will seriously help address their current dilemma, and they look that newbie in the eye and say:

You don’t know what this means to us. You can’t know what a gift you’ve given.

And the client’s eyes fill with tears, and the newbie’s eyes fill with tears, and everybody hugs, and the point is made:

Look what’s possible when you bring your heart and your talent and you put it to work for the right reasons.

That, my friends, is CreateAthon.