3.27.22

Ep. 165: Join the Madness! #MarchGoodness

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On this episode of Money, I’m Home, Lynne Jarman-Johnson is joined by Consumers Social Media Specialist Sara Gentz to discuss the fun, new charity bracket, #MarchGoodness! Tune in to learn about this innovative charity campaign as well as how you can participate in determining the winning charity!

 

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0:00:06.5 Lynne Jarman-Johnson (LJJ): Money, I’m home. Welcome in. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. We are here for you, from finance to fitness. We’re having a ball. Oh yeah. Today we’re having a ball. Let’s talk with Sara again. She is our social media specialist, I have the honor and pleasure of working alongside Sara everyday. And Sara, you’ve really come out strong in March during March Madness, I just want to say, we’re hooping it up, what are all the things I can say to talk about #MarchGoodness? Hey, welcome in.

0:00:37.0 Sara Gentz (SG): Yeah, thanks for having me.

0:00:39.3 LJJ: Alright, so I think it was two years ago when we first came up with the idea of, “Can we do a March Madness campaign but make it about our wonderful charities that we support and help them while also joining in what is so much fun, which is March Madness?” Wasn’t it about two years ago?

0:00:57.6 SG: I would say yeah, it was about two years ago, and we just didn’t really know how that was going to look and really the ins and outs of that. But I’m really excited because this year we officially pulled it all together and came out with our #MarchGoodness charity bracket challenge.

0:01:11.5 LJJ: Well, here’s what is so awesome, and I really want anybody who’s listening it is the constant process that you have brought to the table, Sara, that really brings in, “Hey, we talked about this last year. And is there anything new out on the horizon that allows us to put together a charitable bracket campaign?” But that really is the key here, it’s being able to make it simple for our members and the community to vote, while also being able to support our charitable causes.

0:01:42.6 SG: Yeah, we really wanted to make it as accessible as possible. So that’s why we came up with the virtual event idea, and then that way we could also have our charity partners share it on their social media along with our social media on all of our platforms, and really just help their supporters and our supporters and members vote every day until the brackets advance and you won.

0:02:08.1 LJJ: So, the voting is continuing all the way through the final four. Tell us a little bit about what actually is going on, who are the charities, and how is the money being raised and sent to the charitable causes.

0:02:18.1 SG: Yeah, so we decided to start out strong with 16 charities that Consumers works with pretty closely, and then just traditional March Madness goes on, they advance to the next round, so eight charities down to four, down to the final two, and we’ve partnered with so many good charities including Bronson Health Foundation, Women’s Resource Center, the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan, Mental Health Foundation, Be Nice, The Michigan Maritime Museum, Milestone Senior Services, Urban League of West Michigan, Cherry Health, Walk MS, or the National MS Society, the YMCA, Walk Tall for the Dirty Donut Bike Race, Van Andel Institute, Special Olympics Michigan, United Way, Mosaic Counselling, and then finally the YWCA of Kalamazoo.

0:03:08.3 LJJ: And that really is our sweet 16 what a wonderful group, all of them jump on board to say, “Yes, let’s go, let’s go and let’s make the votes happen.” So now when this airs, which will be Sunday, if you’re listening Sunday or Monday, the sweet 16 wraps up, I think Sunday, you said?

0:03:28.3 SG: Sweet 16 wraps up Friday. Yup, which will automatically start the next eight round.

0:03:34.6 LJJ: Okay, so if they’re listening right now, you can still vote starting on eight, the elite 8, and honestly, it is neck-and-neck isn’t it?

0:03:43.3 SG: It is pretty neck and neck, yeah. It’s fun to see all of these charities face off against each other and really just come together and all for a good cause, too. So, it’s great to see.

0:03:52.7 LJJ: Now we have a quite a commitment to our communities and our charities that we work with, and one of the commitments talks about the fact that it’s not just about money, it’s also about us having feet on the ground and volunteering. You mentioned Bronson Health. So, I’ll just bring up the fact that right now, over the next few weeks, we’re delivering Nothing Bundt Cakes to the front line of Bronson Health. And many people will wonder, “Well, God, isn’t COVID over why is that continuing?” Well, having great deep conversations is that it’s even harder now for staff at many of the health care organizations to be able to just get through the day and to be able to put a smile on their face is something we like to do. Now, Sara, you are in charge of all of the social media for Consumers, you see it every day, don’t you? Not only our members, our team really going out there and putting their feet on the ground.

0:04:50.7 SG: Yes, they are, which is amazing to see. That’s just something I love about Consumers too, it’s not all just about work, we do carve out that time to go out into our communities and volunteer, and like you mentioned, Bronson Health Foundation, we’re also partnering with Special Olympics Michigan to provide some of our employees out to volunteer for their events, which has been fun so far, and great. Milestone Senior Services another great example. Meals on Wheels.

0:05:18.6 LJJ: Yeah, and the thing about it too, is if you’re a community event and would like us to look at your sponsorships, we look at them very closely, we’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in learning how you can participate with us as we participate with you. But that’s the key. The word is participate. We’re not one to just write a check, we love to be involved, but now let’s get close… Let’s get clear, let’s get to the money, tell us… Everybody’s getting money? It’s not just the top vote winner?

0:05:50.1 SG: Yep, so just for participating, all 16 charities will automatically get a donation of $200 from Consumers, and then as they advance to the next round, the elite 8 will get another donation of $300, the final four will get a donation of $500, this is all on top of those previous donations.

0:06:11.8 LJJ: The money is rolling. It’s rolling on up there.

0:06:15.4 SG: Yeah, definitely is. And then the final two will get $700, and then lastly for the championship, they will win $1000. So, all in total, we are donating a total of $10,000 across the board, and then the final winner will get a final number donation of $2,700, two thousand seven hundred dollars.

0:06:35.1 LJJ: That is so fun and Sara it’s been fun watching you put this together. I mean, it’s just been a great experience. And again, strategy really does make things happen and not forgetting that the ideas that come to the table, I just want to do a shout out for you to keep bringing things back and saying, “Maybe this is the year we can actually pull this off.” And the technology to… Technology is wonderful, isn’t it?

0:07:04.3 SG: Yeah, that’s one of the beautiful things about social media, and that’s something that we try to do at Consumers is to use social media for good. So, we love giving back to the community and getting everybody involved, and social media is a great platform to allow everybody to do that no matter where they are.

0:07:18.0 LJJ: So quickly, Sara, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to ask you a little bit of a personal question. Tell us if you thought five years ago that you would be doing what you are doing today, would you have said, “Oh yeah, I just knew this was my path.”

0:07:34.1 SG: Five years ago, I’m not too sure. I was pretty freshly out of college still, so I was still on that purgatory, what’s next? What’s going to happen? I’m the classic millennial and I got a degree in fine arts. So, I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to use that, but now that I am in this position as the social media specialist for Consumers, I couldn’t be happier. It’s really just a great fit, and I love my team, and I love all my co-workers at Consumers. But really, my team has been so supportive and it’s been really fun and I really… I love my job, and I love to be able to go out and do these kinds of things in the community.

0:08:15.2 LJJ: Wow, we really appreciate it because it really is for good, and we love that goodness that we’re sharing. It’s #MarchGoodness head into any of our social media channels which are @ConsumersCU, that’s with a capital C, capital U at the end there, and find us, and then make sure you vote for those charities because we love giving money away. Hey, I want to just say thank you, thank you for your time today. It’s been an awesome conversation.

0:08:41.1 SG: Yeah, thank you for having me. And it was good to talk with you.

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0:08:43.3 LJJ: Now listen up folks, I think you just heard a testimony about why you should work for Consumers, and if you’re interested don’t think about it in the sense. Think about what Sara just said, she’s talking about the fact that she had no idea what she was really going to do and have passion for, and kaboom, she applies for a job at Consumers and grows into this position. Any of you listening, if you know somebody who’s out there looking, don’t be shy, and don’t be shy if you don’t see a piece that you’re like, “Oh I don’t know that I could fit that mold.” We really do hire on culture, we’d love to have you on our team. Sara thanks!

0:09:15.3 SG: Yeah, thank you.

0:09:16.8 LJJ: Okay everybody, thank you for listening. If you have a topic that you’d like to share, please send it our way. Thank you so much, Jake Esselink, for your production skills, and for making us sound so good every week. Everybody have a wonderful week. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson Consumers Credit Union.

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