Everyone Is A Winner

Five creative leaders of the industry joined with 25 committed creative people and 11 NGOs to create a success of the first ever Weekend Donor event in Mumbai this weekend.

The Weekend Donor program was the result of a joint effort between iVolunteer, a social enterprise that seeks to connect volunteers to NGOs, and Marketing Unplugged, a marketing consultancy firm founded by advertising veteran, Suman Srivastava.

This event was part of the Joy of Giving Week, now called Daan Utsav.

The 11 NGOs briefed the creative teams on their marketing and communication challenges and each creative team then came up with a solution within 36 hours. Their work was judged by a panel of creative leaders from the industry and the winning teams won a cash prize of ₹ 50,000.

The judges decided to declare joint winners. Both the winning teams were from FCB Ulka. The team of Pankaj Sinha, Niraj Patil and Praveen Chavan won for their work for Cuddles Foundation. While the team of Dia Kripalani, Shambhabi Raha and Shweta Hoyle won for their work on YRG Care.

The creative teams who participated in this effort came from FCB Ulka, FCB Interface, Publicis and Contract. The judges were Bobby Pawar (Publicis), Agnello Dias (Taproot Dentsu), Ashish Khazanchi (Enormous), Prashant Godbole (Ideas@Work), Vineet Mahajan (Contract) and Venkat Krishnan (Daan Utsav). The judges got into the spirit of the event by contributing their own money and volunteering their own time for specific NGOs who they were fascinated by.

The participating NGOs were: Guidestar India, Letzchange, Cuddles Foundation, Sol’s Arc, Oscar Foundation, Helpage India, Make a Wish India, Values India, iVolunteer, India Cares Foundation, CSA, YRG Care.

DaanUtsav (earlier Joy of Giving Week) is India’s largest festival of philanthropy. Started in 2009, this festival has seen millions of people experience giving in the most amazing and inspiring of ways. From railway stations and classrooms in poor schools getting a makeover to CEOs of corporates pledging their time to be shadowed by wannabe entrepreneurs, from vegetable vendors contributing a portion of their wares to old age homes to young children raising a rupee a day to give away to charity... this festival has touched scores of people – those giving and those receiving.

Shalabh Sahai, founder iVolunteer said,"This is more than a contest.12 NGOs leave with communication solutions developed by some of the brightest and most enthusiastic minds along with a potential to build a longer term relationship with each of them."

Suman Srivastava, founder Marketing Unplugged added, "I am glad that these 25 young people from the advertising industry got a taste of volunteering and giving their most precious resource - time. I am delighted with the quality of work done in the short time. I hope this becomes a regular event and spreads to more cities."

Quote from a volunteer: Shitija Tagde, FCB Ulka commented, "It was really nice! You know exactly what the NGOs wanted and we believe in the cause that they are working  on, this motivated me to do better for them."

Quote from an NGO: Ashima, Helpage India said, "We are always looking to reach out to more people and such initiative bring innovative ideas for NGOs."