Customer Highlight: Adpearance

December 12, 2019

Adpearance is a digital marketing solutions company located in Portland, OR. Founded in 2009, the company has won numerous awards for its culture and for being a great place to work. An intrinsic part of that culture is to give back to the local community.

Giving Back To Their Community

In 2017 the company launched its Community Service Committee (CSC), an internal group of employee volunteers. They researched local nonprofits and identified those that most resonated with employees. They chose a diverse group of nonprofits, with a diverse group of needs so that each employee could choose a cause, and the type of volunteer work they’d like to do. A lot of people like the outdoors – they want to work on environmental issues. Others want to help children or animals. Some want to help the homeless.

In launching and supporting employee volunteerism, the company sends a clear message to employees, potential employees, and the larger community. The volunteer aspect helps to deliver work/life balance – being given time off to volunteer allows people to give back to the community while still having time for a personal life.

Many companies say they promote work/life balance, but Adpearance walks the talk by encouraging employees to volunteer during working hours. The owners and founders are community-minded. It’s in the DNA of the company, so it attracts like-minded people. Most new hires already have pet projects or causes. By encouraging volunteerism, the company gives people a break from the office, does good in the community, and it’s an organic, natural way to present the company to the community in a positive way. This is part of what we like to call the Triple Benefit.

“It’s important to me and other employees that we're working somewhere that cares about the community… cares about the issues that we care about. It's something people should think about when they are choosing where they want to work.”
– Taylor Charles, Training and Development Specialist

The Struggle Of Managing An Employee Volunteer Program

The CSC soon realized that managing the employee volunteer program was a significant and growing effort. Being a technology company, Adpearance understands the value of software tools to improve efficiency and effectiveness. So they searched for appropriate tools and found NobleHour. NobleHour was just what they needed – it connects employees with volunteer opportunities, tracks projects and hours, and generates comprehensive and powerful impact reports. They asked for a demo and were immediately impressed with the ease of use and the functionality of NobleHour.

“NobleHour is really easy to use, so people use it. It documents what each volunteer has done, and shows the total effort of the whole company. It’s nice to be able to look at that (including Reflections and pictures) and see the impact we’ve made.” -Andrea Saso, Account Executive

Before NobleHour, the CSC didn’t have a way to track and categorize all the available volunteer opportunities, and the amount of time each employee was volunteering, and what tasks they were performing. The CSC was struggling to communicate the kinds of volunteer opportunities that were available. NobleHour makes that easy, so people engage with it. People understand the value of the software, so they use it, they log their hours without prompting.

People in nonprofit organizations are appreciative and sometimes surprised at the fact that Adpearance supports volunteerism on company time. It really impresses them, and they form a favorable opinion of the company.

In addition to volunteering for the tasks that the organizations are performing. Adpearance also runs digital ad campaigns for some of them – using the company’s core competencies and infrastructure too, for example, leverage the free ad dollars that Google grants to nonprofits. Google ad campaigns are complex to implement and run, so many nonprofits end up not using the fairly large budgets that Google donates. This exposes people to the value that Adpearance delivers to its customers.

Thanks to NobleHour

“Adpearance recognizes that everybody has different family and personal obligations. NobleHour makes it easy to manage the different schedules so people can volunteer when they have the available time… whenever that is. The Explore feature lets me quickly and easily filter all the opportunities to find the ones that match my interest and schedule.” – Emily Larkin, Marketing Specialist

For other companies who would like to do the same thing, NobleHour makes the process much easier. It enables a quick start launch of an employee volunteer program, and it makes the entire process more efficient and transparent.

By NobleHour Staff:

Allison Hale

Director of Marketing

TreeTop Commons

Portland, Oregon

Allison is the Director of Marketing for TreeTop Commons, and its products; NobleHour and Collaboratory. A Portland native, Allison volunteers regularly for community nonprofits that support sustainability programs, and at her childrens’ school teaching art literacy.