We were sitting around the conference room trying to decide on which charity we should give back to. Most corporations have their one charitable organization they support. One they dedicate time to and advocate for, one that stands for what their company stands for. After a few ideas being thrown back and forth, weighing one place versus the other, we couldn’t agree on one. We tried to take a step back and look at it from different angles.
How do we give back to the community while owning a strategic direction and make it accessible to all employees in the agency? Then it hit us, mentorship. Through our Talent Accelerator Program (internship) we have immersed many young talented students in the real world of advertising and have seen strong professional growth in them. Since the birth of the TAP program, we’ve hired about 30% into our agency and almost 100% have gone into the world of marketing and advertising.
Now there’s something we’re good at. There’s something we have a passion for, mentorship. Instead of dedicating ourselves to one organization, we’re giving ourselves to a cause, mentorship. We can all find our own way to mentor, there are plenty of organizations out there with people needing guidance for professional growth. Since this meeting, we now have two mentorship efforts in various stages of implementation.
For San Diego State University School of Art + Design and The Art Institute of California San Diego we host informational portfolio reviews for students who may be interested in creative advertising. We have also given talks at both schools about the marketing and advertising industry. A partnership is being formed to pair our agency with a local non-profit to guide students through a real-life marketing project for the non-profit in collaboration with our agency.
We are also in the early stages of constructing a program with Just in Time for Foster Youth. We will be working with JIT to put together a paid 10-week real-life group project, growing skills from marketing and advertising to PR.
This is only the beginning of our mentorship efforts which can only grow. Our internal participation is also growing. With an optimistic point-of-view, we are looking forward to sharing future outcomes from these efforts.
