Doing the right thing and helping others during the COVID-19 pandemic
You’ve probably heard the old adage about the cobbler’s children who have no shoes? Well, the McKenzie Worldwide team has been neglecting our own blog updates since we’ve been busy helping on so many fronts during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, it’s probably time for a year-end wrap up of some of these important activities. We’ll plan to do a much better job of sharing news about our agency’s activities and updating our blog going forward in 2021.
We have been helping several nonprofit organizations with their COVID-19 response efforts since the beginning of the pandemic and as the pandemic has dragged on for nearly a year now, it’s been a very busy and long year. We’ve reconnected with old friends, made many new friends, tackled new challenges, and rolled up our sleeves to help make a difference.
Maker Mask Initiative: We’ve been working with the Maker Mask Initiative since the beginning of the pandemic to provide public relations, marketing, and social media services to share the Maker Mask story. Maker Mask is a rapidly-growing grassroots ecosystem and digital platform response to the COVID-19 crisis that has continued to morph and grow over time. The nonprofit effort is enabling makers around the world to make protective respirator-style masks using their 3D printers and the free computer aided design (CAD) files that Maker Mask has provided on their website. Since March 30, more than 250,000 CAD files of the free Maker Mask designs have been downloaded by nearly 11,000 makers around the world. In addition, people from 160 countries have visited the makermask.com website resulting in nearly 870,000 page views.
During the past few months, the Maker Mask team has also been working hard to create an injection molded version of the Radius mask which is now available for purchase. We are very proud to be a part of this team and this important initiative to help provide National Institutes of Health (NIH)-approved and NIOSH-certified masks that are so much better than N95 masks, surgical masks, or fabric masks. Maker Mask’s Radius design results in a reusable, silicone mask with special filters that protects you when you breathe in and others when you breathe out. When you need a serious mask, you need Maker Mask!
Restart Partners: Restart Partners, founded in May 2020, is a nonprofit organization focused on fostering collaboration among state and local government leaders around the issue of personal protective equipment (PPE) and working together with behavioral experts to change social norms about wearing masks. To help state and local government leaders better project ongoing demand for PPE as they restart the economies of states and counties impacted by COVID-19, Restart Partners has developed an open-source PPE projection data model that makes it easier to understand what is happening with the pandemic in various regions and what equipment is needed to protect the general population.
We’ve been helping the Restart Partners team with public relations, content creation, social media, and video services as well as website design and development.
Millions of Masks for Children Initiative: Sponsored by SmartAID, our initiative is focused on providing face masks to children to protect them and slow the spread of COVID-19. As part of the Millions of Masks for Children team, we’ve worked on everything from marketing to storytelling and public relations to strategic counsel to website design and development and more.
We kicked off the Millions of Masks for Children Initiative in Washington State with a donation of more than one million masks provided by FLTR and quickly followed with another donation from FLTR of more than one million masks to kids in disadvantaged communities across Utah. Now, Millions of Masks for Children is expanding its reach to include more children in more states across the U.S. in an effort to help the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re proud to be a part of this effort to make a difference and hopefully save lives during the pandemic. For more information or to make a donation, please visit kidmasks.org or send an email to [email protected].
Has all of our hard work during the long days/nights/weekends on behalf of these nonprofit organizations and initiatives during the past several months of the COVID-19 pandemic helped strengthen our agency’s brand? It seems reasonable that we would want to talk about that here since the focus of our blog is to outline ways that you can build trust in your brand — particularly since “building trust in your brand” is our agency’s tagline.
But, that was not the reason that we jumped in to help. Frankly, it was just the right thing to do …. so we did it. Our work simply underscores our eight agency values: trust, integrity, passion, excellence, creativity, tenacity, curiosity, and caring. It is rewarding work.
We want to thank everyone who has been helping others and working hard to make a difference during the pandemic. Here’s to a Happy & Healthy New Year for all!
