I believe that it is something any successful entrepreneur will eventually do. It’s a mix of wanting to do something outside the day to day business, feeling the social responsibility to make your community a better one and finally the realization that your business flourishes because of the support of employees, clients, customers, and other stakeholders. Although it will be drastically different for each individual and organization, social responsibility is a key pillar on what I believe creates any good Canadian businesses foundation and one that I personally take very seriously here at the Wish Group.
For years I was donating to various charities, buying good for fundraisers and corporate sponsorships at events. This seemed to be at its heights during the holiday season. After some time I began to find this a bit cumbersome and began to think about how the Wish Group and I could actually give away something of immediate value to someone in need and create an impact during this time of the year.
After talking to a number of people and recalling chats from years past, a prominent theme that kept coming up was people who were unable to see loved ones that lived out of the city or country during the holiday season, usually due to some kind of financial constraint.
I felt that if we could alleviate that stress for at least one family per then we could actually make an impact in somebody’s life, which is the underlying purpose of the Wish Group. It seemed so obvious then and led to the creation of our Holiday Wish initiative in 2014. The Holiday Wish is designed to allow people to send in their stories of whom they’d like to see flown home to Toronto for the holidays or nominate a person or family that they feel could use some holiday cheer. Once selected, our winners or their family are flown in to spend the holidays together!
What I love about this program is actually seeing firsthand the positive powerful impact for an entire family. Our first one last year was amazing and bringing together generations of a family from great grandmother to grandparents and grandchildren not only validated the mandate for the initiative but brought an addition sense of joy to the entire team at the Wish Group.
[vimeo 146029236 w=500 h=281]I’m excited about our second year and encourage you all to share the Holiday Wish with friends, family, employees and even think about someone you’d love to see for the holidays personally this year!
Remember to give your little piece back to the community this year. Big or small it really doesn’t matter as long as you feel the impact of it in your own way.