Showpad's Spirit of Giving

This year has been challenging, unforgiving and unique for everyone around the world — it’s difficult to put into words how immense and widespread the impact of COVID-19 has been, and likely will continue to be. Despite everything that’s happened – the good and the bad – we wanted to close this year on a note of gratitude.

As part of our Showpad Cares initiative, we’ve identified a handful of nonprofit organizations that we are giving back to because they do so much to give to others. This is the season of giving and we urge others to look for various ways to give back to communities in need. The incredible organizations that we have chosen to give back to are:

Chicago: Deborah’s Place opens doors of opportunity for women who are homeless in Chicago. Supportive housing and services offer women their key to healing, achieving their goals and moving on from the experience of homelessness.

San Francisco: Ruby’s Place is a comprehensive wellness based program that provides shelter and support to victims of human trafficking and domestic abuse.

Portland: Rose Haven is a day shelter and community center serving women, children and gender non-conforming folks experiencing the trauma of abuse, loss of home and other disruptive life challenges.

Wroclaw: St. Albert Aid Foundation is a shelter for homeless women and for women in a difficult life situation in need of a helping hand to start a dignified life again.

Munich: ReDi School of Digital Integration has a Digital Women Program that empowers refugee and migrant women by helping them develop their digital skills to support their wellbeing, accelerate integration in Germany and open new professional perspectives.

London: Bookmark is a charity that supports children who can use extra support in learning to read. People with poor literacy are likely to have a reduced life expectancy and lower paying jobs. Bookmark wants to stop this trend.

Ghent: Sint-Jan-Baptist (website in Dutch only) supports children in difficult home situations and offers single teenage mothers a place to stay and raise their child.

In the spirit of giving, three of our employee resource groups – Showpad Cares, our corporate social responsibility group; Women of Showpad, our group to empower women across the organization; and Showpad Sports, our committee to help employees stay active and engaged) came up with a creative way to raise money for these organizations. The groups challenged our employees to race against our CEO, PJ, in a virtual 10K, with the goal of hosting this race to raise money for the above organizations.

Employees from around the world entered the race, some running against PJ solo and others teaming up to take him down. Whether a runner or not, our employees all found a way to participate. If running isn’t your thing – you had the option to donate as a way to encourage those racing against PJ. In the end, all of the proceeds, which amounted to £1,772, were split evenly amongst the selected charities.

We encourage everyone, if able, to show gratitude to others and continue the spirit of giving this holiday season. Let’s start 2021 better than how we leave 2020.