GroupM employees across nine agency offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, stopped work for their annual ‘Power of One’ day last Friday – to spend time giving back and raising funds for UnLtd charities.

The agency network came together to generate over $140,000 in value – all in one day.

Sarah Crowley, GroupM’s HR and talent manager, said employees were given the choice to participate through:  skilled volunteering, unskilled volunteering or pay-to-play events.

“This year we pulled out all the stops to provide our teams with a range of ways to get involved, have fun and contribute to our industry’s mission to undo youth disadvantage,” said Crowley.

“Power of One Day is about us putting our values into action, and strengthening our team spirit for an amazing cause. We get great things done when we act with the ‘Power of One’.”

UnLtd general manager Carol Morris said they built highly measurable social impact targets, and an emphasis on delivering value to charities, into this year’s program.

“Through working on a deeper leve with our charities, we’ve been able to identify very specific needs and ways in which our industry can best provide vital skills to assist.

“We set GroupM the challenge of delivering on specific projects and campaigns for some of our highest need youth charity partners. Being able to see how their work was making a direct social impact was a powerful motivator for staff,” said Morris.

Some of the 20+ projects delivered included:

• The Reach Foundation in Surry Hills has space to lease out to corporates for events, but the venue was in dire need of some cosmetic upgrades and new equipment. The GroupM crew combined their powers to scope out the venue, created design concepts, and got to work on redecorating the space for the Reach team to now commercialise much more effectively.
• Young girls from the SISTER2sister program are in desperate need of a smiling face, some TLC and pampering by other female role models.  GroupM sent 15 women to engage with these girls, do their hair, nails, makeup and spend quality time with them at a group picnic event.
• The Pyjama Foundation has a waiting list of volunteers to assist foster children improve their literacy and numeracy levels, but not enough funds to cover the cost of screening and training these people.  GroupM’s strategic minds were put to work, to create innovative solutions to address this.
• For OzHarvest, providing meals for young homeless people is an ongoing challenge. On Power of One Day, 30 GroupM employees stepped up and went to work in the kitchen to prepare thousands of meals to be distributed to young people in need last Friday night.

The UnLtd charities supported on the day included:  Sister2Sister, Weave, Youth off the Streets, Sylvanvale, The Reach Foundation, OzHarvest, Be Centre, The Pyjama Foundation, Teen Challenge SA, Raise, The Salvation Army Project 614 in Melbourne and Hear for You.