This is the first post in a three post series designed to help communities, companies and creative crews start their own local CreateAthon.

Here at the CreateAthon Mother Ship, we get hundreds of letters (slight exaggeration) from folks just itching to be a part of the CreateAthon magic. But there’s a slight complication. There isn’t a CreateAthon in their area — yet.

Seeing as how “can’t” and “no” aren’t accepted parts of CreateAthon vernacular, there are a few different ways to get the ball rolling in a CreateAthon-less community.

One great thing about CreateAthon is the model is flexible. The 24-hour pro bono marathon model can spring forth from a business, school, in-house marketing team or professional group. Creativity isn’t beholden to one profession or workplace. CreateAthon is a bunch of inspired — and organized — people who can think and do marketing magic under the worst possible circumstances.

CreateAthon started in an advertising agency 14 years ago but it hasn’t been limited to ad agencies in any way. The idea was simply to compress a company’s annual pro-bono work into something more meaningful and beneficial for nonprofits, which often found their needs stuck on a perpetual side burner.

You see, CreateAthon is not about who does the work or the work that’s done. It’s about helping a community’s nonprofits. CreateAthon provides a powerful, concentrated dose of marketing strategy and expertise that can resonate in their strategy, services, fundraising and communications for years to come.

So the first rule of CreateAthon? You don’t have to be an ad agency to play.

In the next post, we’ll talk about a different type of workplace where the CreateAthon model has launched with great success: a corporate marketing department.