While most companies only focus on being leaders within their industry, it is rare to come across an organization with a written purpose dedicated to its culture and employees. With that said, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that engaging each other on a human level and pursuing passions is the key to a sustainable work-life balance. At Digible, our core purpose is to be a role model for employee culture and catalyst for progressive change.
In December of 2019, as the growing Digible team met to recap the year, we took the time to assess our community engagement program and make commitments for a future that would revolutionize Digible employee culture forever.
Fiona Forward was born! Created with a dedication to community engagement, Digible leadership committed the Fiona Forward initiative to 4 total community engagements/quarter, with one of those engagements being during working hours. Employee engagement rose to the next level, and Fiona Forward would go on to be the start of so much more at Digible.
Our motley crew embraced the early days of Fiona Forward with enthusiasm and excitement. The Digible team wasted no time and jumped straight in by working with Food For Thought Denver, packing meal kits for underprivileged youth. Did you know that thousands of children go hungry every weekend without access to free school meals? In the middle of downtown, the Digible team worked with Food For Thought Denver to help prepare thousands of bags of food for in-need children across the district.
Later that quarter, on a snowy afternoon in the middle of February, Digible employees took time out of their lunch to sit, craft, and come up with some pun-tastic messages for a cause. The next day, Digible hand delivered 50 Valentine’s Day Cards to the volunteer center at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Not only were employees able to relive our favorite days of arts and crafts, but we also spread some love and cheer to amazing kiddos!
In March 2020, like the rest of the world, Fiona Forward had to adjust to the new normal. Digible’s core purpose held strong as the rest of the world changed around us, but how could we be involved and volunteer from home? How could we responsibly encourage our employees to volunteer in the world of social distancing and Zoom? While we were staying at home, we knew it was important to stay together. That’s why Fiona Forward shifted focus to prioritize employee mental health and well-being while working from home. Because like RuPaul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” Through company-wide challenges, the Digible Masterclass series, and even a couple of virtual events, we learned and laughed together while raising money for important causes. You can find out more about that here.
During those first months of the pandemic, it was incredibly important to the Digible team to find a way to give back to our community and provide support where we could. Ultimately, the Digible team decided that in a time when grocery stores were being depleted and people were losing their main sources of income, the biggest difference we could make was in the form of food support. In May of 2020, Fiona Forward donated $1,000 to Spark the Change Colorado who partnered with Harvest Pack, The City of Denver, and Denver Public Schools to host meal packing events that would feed underprivileged communities in the Denver area. With Digible’s donation, Spark the Change packed over 28,000 meals!
Since the end of lockdown, Fiona Forward has given Digbile employees the opportunity to engage with Special Olympics Colorado. Over the course of 3 days, team members took the morning off of work to teach basketball and gymnastics to 2-8-year-olds. Reinvigorating our excitement for community involvement, we are thrilled to be back in person and engaging with our community one on one.
Come bad weather or pandemic, Fiona Forward continues to be a driving force for Digbile employee engagement and progressive change inside and out. Through it all, we’ve learned that volunteering not only gives us a chance to help but also learn more about the challenges members of our community face. Because Fiona Forward is an employee-driven program, any team member can share what they are passionate about and provide the entire Digible team all the tools and resources to get involved.
“Be a role model for employee culture and catalyst for progressive change” Yes, Digible also has industry goals, both short term and long, but our leadership team realized early on that revolutionary change starts from within, and only through employee happiness and wellbeing will we as an organization be able to accomplish all that we set out to do…and trust us…there’s a lot. Fiona Forward is helping us get there!
