In celebration of Upshot’s 20th anniversary each employee was given $20 to spend toward any Chicago charity they wanted. Seeing as $20 could only go so far, I pitched my team to pool all of our money and buy art supplies for an inner city school. My team started talking about our project and in turn other colleagues became excited to join. The project grew. I then asked my agency to take it a step further and go bigger. We requested that the school conduct a Chicago themed art contest and select the top 20 entries. They sent us the winning artwork which we showcased on the company’s main stage. My agency selected a winner and 3 runners up. We then invited the 20 students to our agency for pizza, an education on agency life (including how they can turn their art skills into a career), an office tour, and the winner received a $100 gift certificate to Dick Blick (runners up each got $25). Our CFO was so impressed with the young, talented artists, she insisted that our IT Department donate several computers to the school....to help jumpstart their Art Director careers.
