Cumberland Consulting Group
Type of Work: Community Outreach
Client: Various
Cumberland Consulting Group has always made efforts to create programs and outlets for employees to give back to the communities where they live and work. In recent years, the firm has formalized those efforts through the formation of two employee engagement groups—Cumberland Community Outreach and Cumberland Multisport Club.
Over the last year, Cumberland employees participated in 17 different events across the country ranging from 5K races to volunteer days at soup kitchens.
And Amy Meiners, a Partner at Cumberland, says the firm's community service projects are distinct because they are 100 percent employee-driven. "Each project is organized by Cumberland employees, who volunteer their time to coordinate the event," she says. "Over the last year, Cumberland employees walked, ran or biked nearly 7,000 miles for worthy causes."
In June, Cumberland participated in the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride to raise money and awareness in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Eight Cumberland employees took a week off from work to bike 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Team Cumberland was able to raise nearly $40,000 for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
"I think this is a fantastic team-building effort within Cumberland, but it's also something that's for a wonderful cause," Meiners says. "This event happened organically, this didn't come down as a mandate from the leadership team. They are all completely employee driven."
The AIDS LifeCycle Ride started last year with a few employees and then added a few more in 2014. Meiners says there's already buzz around the 2015 race, too. "I see this as something that will continue to grow next year and beyond."
In September, Cumberland formed a team to participate in the CureSearch Walk in Chicago, which honors children whose lives have been affected by childhood cancer and raises funds for cancer research. Cumberland's 33 participants raised nearly $9,000 for childhood cancer research, and one of Cumberland's employees was named a top fundraiser for the event.
"This event is great because it connects the people who are raising the funds with the patients who are sometimes critically ill," she says. "It's not just about raising funds, which is great, but it's also about connecting with the causes, spirit and the overall mission of the organization. You really get to see where the money is going and feel the impact, you get to talk to the patients and their families."
But it's not all fundraising, Cumberland employees organized a drive to collect soap, shampoo and other toiletries for Ronald McDonald House Charities. Last quarter, Cumberland employees donated more than 92 pounds of toiletries to the Ronald McDonald House Charities local chapters in Nashville, Tenn. and New York.
Cumberland volunteers support the Saint Thomas Soup Kitchen in New York on Saturday mornings, making several hundred lunches and then walking a 20-block radius to give them to the homeless.
"Cumberland is making a difference, one project at a time," she says.
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