Proximo preps for first CreateAthon allnighter.

  • Written by Julie Turner

Proximo Marketing Strategies is not your grandmother’s marketing agency. The Williamsburg, Virginia-based team united in 2011 to form a digital creative agency well versed in the nuances of modern marketing. Even better? They decided to join CreateAthon’s national network of partner agencies in 2013. Founder Will Melton was kind enough to share why Proximo Marketing Strategies chose community service via CreateAthon during national Pro Bono Week, October 22-26. Like many 21st century tales, this jouney began courtesy of a LinkedIn blog post. What?

In early May of this year, I stumbled on a blog post on LinkedIn talking about the lessons learned from participating in something called CreateAthon. The idea of a 24-hour, work-around-the-clock marketing push was intriguing and I immediately thought it was something worth reading more about. Having worked with so many nonprofit organizations in the past as a service provider, volunteer and board member, doing something as a part of Proximo Marketing Strategies to help seemed fitting. Since we’re a relatively new agency, we are always looking for new ways to get involved in the community and CreateAthon was new and different and national and we couldn’t turn town the opportunity.

These were all of the thoughts that went through my head, likely along with 50 other thoughts about how fun and rewarding it would be. Then I started reading even more about Riggs Partners, the agency who created CreateAthon; then I watched a video about CreateAthon and it almost brought me to tears. Watching the looks on the faces of those who had received pro bono help through the CreateAthon project was all it took for me to be sure this was something I wanted to be a part of. I thought it might take some convincing of my team, but I was pleasantly surprised to find everyone agreeing to come on board within just a couple of minutes of understanding exactly what it was all about. One of our summer interns even asked how she can be a part of the project when she gets back to school.

Then the planning began. Fortunately, through lessons learned from of all of the agencies that participated in the past, Riggs Partners had a great tool kit with lots of great advice to help us get started. While we were most interested in getting the press releases out and making sure our application was ready to be filled out, we immediately started to think about the types of organizations we wanted to help. In Williamsburg, we seem to be surrounded by them. There are so many that need marketing support and so many more that need whatever advice they can get on how to be better fundraisers or how to better advocate for their cause. A few weeks later, I was listening to a story on NPR about how one area Meals on Wheels had to cut back the number of meals they delivered to their clients from five to four a week as a result of cuts to their budget introduced by sequestration. It dawned on me that Meals on Wheels wasn’t likely the only organization that had to cut services to real people because of similar situations.

As we’ve planned and thought and prodded to introduce CreateAthon to our local 501c3′s we have only gotten more excited about the work we will be doing in October as part of the CreateAthon marketing blitz. We’ve enjoyed reading the applications and understanding the needs that organizations in our area face. We’re more aware of the focus we want to take when selecting organizations to work with and we can’t wait for October to come so we can get to work. We don’t know yet what impact we will have or what impact CreateAthon will have on us, but we are confident that when the time comes, a few tears will likely be shed.

 

Truth be told, we at Riggs Partners and CreateAthon are simply thrilled to stand alongside so many kind and creative peeps like those at Proximo Marketing Strategies. It’s not too late to throw your hat in the all nighter ring. Get the deets at createathon.org