Culture Book 2015
Our Story DoSomething.org makes the world suck less. One of the largest global orgs for young people and social change, our 4 million members tackle campaigns that impact every cause, from poverty to violence to the environment to literally everything else. Any cause, anytime, anywhere. *mic drop*
11 REASONS TO WORK AT DOSOMETHING
1. We’ve got history 2. We have a kickass staff 3. We love our interns 4. We work hard, but play harder 5. We have a cool crib 6. We’re around the world 7. We get around 8. We make campaigns that are big, loud, and easy 9. We have the inside scoop 10. We know all the cool people 11. We’re hip and with it
1 WE’VE GOT HISTORY
Big Stuff
Our website went live! Not very cute, but hey it was the 90’s.
CEO, Nancy Lublin was one of our two employees.
2008
2003
DoSomething was born! Co-founded by actor and dreamboat Andrew Shue.
1995
1993
O uch!
Membership was extended to SMS through Mobile Commons. It was a huge success #BOSS
Queen Lublin launches Crisis Text Line (CTL), the first free, 24/7 text line for teens.
2015
2013
2014
2013
TMI goes live! This subsidiary strategy agency shows other brands how to be badass.
DoSomething site is relaunched, and It’s as badass as we are.
Fourth millionth member joins us.
2 WE HAVE A KICKASS STAFF
2015 Staff
AARON SCHACHTER
ADAM GARNER
ANDREA GAITHER
Senior Software Engineer
Campaigns Manager, Health
Senior Software Engineer
ARIA FINGER
ARIEL SCOTT-DICKER
BEN KASSOY
COO
Mobile Engagement Associate
Managing Editor
BONNIE HUMPHERYS
CHLOE LEE
CHRIS HARBUR
Office Manager
Junior Software Engineer
VIP Engagement
ory t a v ser n o c g Actin grad
een r g e O ff ic mb thu
COLLEEN WORMSLEY
DARREN “DEE” LEE
DAVE FURNES
PR + Talent Relations Manager
Digital Content Associate
Senior Software Engineer
DIANE ZMIRICH
DIEGO LORENZO
FELICIA FITZPATRICK
Digital Marketing Associate
Software Engineer
Digital Content Associate
FREDDIE BOLOGNO
GLEB BOUNDIN
JEFF BLADT
Mobile Engagement Manager
Tech Wizard
Chief Data Officer
2015 Staff
JESS HARVEY
JONATHAN UY
JOSH CUSANO
Campaigns Associate, Health
Mobile Technical Lead
Data Scientist
JULIE LORCH
KATIE RADFORD
KAYLA MONTEIRO
Head of UX
Head of Fun
Assistant to the COO
KENIA BAUMGARTEN
KERI GOFF
LIZ EDDY
Director of Finance
Creative Director
Special Projects Manager
LUKE PATTON
MARAH LIDEY
MARISSA RANALLI
User Experience Designer
Director of Mobile Product & Messaging
Marketing Manager
n al o i t a n Inter Pianist Ja z z
MATT HOLFORD
MICAH NELSON
MICHAELA BETHUNE
CTO
Global Strategist
Campaigns Manager, Education
MIKE FANTINI
MORGAN RICH
NAMI MODY
Head of Product
Senior Software Engineer
Junior Product Manager
2015 Staff
NANCY LUBLIN
NAOMI HIRABAYASHI
CEO
CMO
RITIKA KAUSHAL Finance/HR Manager
erd
gy n o l o r t s A
SAMANTHA ARPINO
SAMRA BROUK
SARAH PIPER-GOLDBERG
Campaigns Associate, Sex, Violence, and Relationships
Business Development Manager
Campaign Engagement Manager
SENA HEYDARI
SHAE SMITH
TONG XIANG
Director of Infrastructure and Engineering
Software Engineer
Junior Software Engineer
2015 TMI Staff
ARIA FINGER
GREG PERLSTEIN
GREG THOMAS
President
Director, Strategy, and Partnership
Lead Strategist
KARY PEREZ
LISA BOYD
MAAHIKA SRINIVASAN
Strategist
Senior Strategist
Strategist
We asked the staff... WHAT’S SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU?
WHAT DID YOU DO ON YOUR 16TH BIRTHDAY?
LIZ EDDY
GLEB BOUNDIN
I went to 5 universities but still graduated in 3.5 years!
Went to see The Matrix Reloaded and wrote sad poetry.
GREG THOMAS
CHRIS HARBUR
I am a huge Gilligan’s Island fan and built a Gilligan’s Island fan site in the 90s.
I was living in Nassau, Bahamas so my brother and I went jet skiing. It was the best.
KAYLA MONTEIRO
BONNIE HUMPHERYS
I can recite 85% of IHOP’s menu. Might I recommend a Splashberry to start?
BEN KASSOY
I have a scar on my foot from punting a rotten banana.
Skipped school and went to a Jay Z concert.. AND got to meet him in person!! HELL YEA!!!
GREG PERLSTEIN
Party at Bertucci’s, where I was given a lifesize cutout of Sarah Michelle Gellar.
We asked the staff... IF YOU HAD TO GET A TATTOO RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
IF YOU WERE TRAPPED ON AN ISLAND WITH A DS’ER, WHO WOULD IT BE/WHY?
MARISSA RANALLI
JOE KENT
I would like a tiny bird or something related to water on my wrist.
I’ll take my chances going alone.
NIN T WIN
G!
#
LISA BOYD
JESS HARVEY
“What good shall I do this day?”
Adam because WE ARE ONE.
SAM ARPINO
MICAH NELSON
I’m thinking a mashup of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Lisa Frank circa 1993.
Nami - that girl has survival skills...and is a great conversationalist.
DARREN “DEE” LEE
GREG THOMAS
The words to a Czech magic healing spell my wife’s grandfather taught her.
Naomi, because she would never be anything other than positive.
We asked the staff... WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DOSOMETHING.ORG MEMORY SO FAR?
IF YOU HAD UNLIMITED MONEY FOR ONE DAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
BEN KASSOY
SAMRA BROUK
The flash mob for Nancy’s birthday, where she literally peed her pants.
I would sit down with my mom and book as many flights and hotels as we could, to all the places she wants to travel all over the world.
LIZZY DIVINE Freddie groovin’ with the Greek dancer.
JESS HARVEY Charter a private jet and fly through the Bermuda Triangle. I have to know what’s going on there!
LIZ EDDY I have so many but #ReadyforFreddie just took the cake.
DARREN “DEE” LEE Go for a walk...
ARIA FINGER Finding out how many lives we’ve saved through Give a Spit. Damn, that campaign SAVES LIVES.
Staff Retreat The DoSomething.org staff isn’t a group of people stuck together in an office, tolerating each other for 40 hours a week. We’re a close and creative staff who truly listen and care for one another. For one week a year, we take a getaway to focus on the big picture. Staff Retreat spawns innovative new ideas for the organization and helps us bond as the family we are. We laugh, we cry, and we come up with ideas for how to make DoSomething.org better.
3 WE LOVE OUR INTERNS
2015 Summer Interns We have paid interns in the office year-round to keep us on our toes! Interns gain valuable work experience in the not-for-profit world and spearhead a variety of independent projects (#NudeAwakening? Yeah, that was an intern). We had 26 amazing full-time interns this summer, who took care of everything from boosting our Instagram following by 10,000 in less than a month to creating models that predict the future behavior of our members.
Andy Gonzales
Anton Halim
Brian Ngobidi
Game Developer
Web Developer
CTL Web Developer
Christopher Nickelson
“I was surprised by the fact that everyone, literally EVERYONE is rooting for you and wants you to be better, even people outside of your team. It’s almost self motivating cause you don’t want to let them down.” --Brian
Marketing & PR
Diego Vicente
Elif Anda
Erin Grand
CTL Quality Assurance
Business Development
CTL Data
eti c h t s Ae Best erl ative Sup
Evan Layne
Franchesca Renfroe
Gabriel Gomez
Finance
Campaigns
Digital Content
“I saw a company that would let me be myself. DoSomething is a place filled with amazing people who want to change the world, and they do so while being unapologetic about who they are. That’s inspiration.” -Franchesca
Jared Wolf CTL Marketing
Kelvin Liu
Jasmine Mithani
Lindsay Mann
Data
Game Developer
TMI Strategy
Lamiya Khandaker Campaigns
“I’ve learned about SEO, mobile applications development, Photoshop, Illustrator, AND the internship has really helped me gain more confidence in sharing ideas and being creative.” -- Gabriel
2015 Summer Interns Luis Torres
Marie Pederson
Michelle Florin
Paola Calderon
Paul Han
Samantha Stavis
Campaigns
Digital Engagement
International
Web Developer
“The most unexpected thing about this internship is how closely interns work with the top people in the organization. It’s awesome to participate in meetings and bounce ideas off of everyone from my manager to the CEO. Everyone is so accessible, friendly, smart, and incredible!” -- Michelle
TMI Strategy
CTL Operations
Samra Seifu
Campaigns Intern
Steven Hartwig Tech
Toyin Robinson
Quality Assurance
Trey Jackson
Business Development
The Intern Map
We hail from all around the country – and the world! This year we had interns from all over the United States. We even had a few bodies from United Kingdom, China, and Indonesia. No matter where you’re from, don’t be afraid to apply!
over l l a om s! r f e We’r e state th
High School Interns We wouldn’t be where we are now without our wonderful high school interns! Shout out to all the high school interns that helped out this summer:
Aasha Shaik
Chelsey Sanjuan
Darrow Hornik
Delvin Akoto
Domenica Guaman
Dominique Hart
Hampton Gaddy
Iris Yu
Lindsay Mosca
Lucy Perrone
Matthew Wei
Nihar Raval
Paige Willian
4 WE WORK HARD AND PLAY HARDER
Spirit Days We like to spruce up our Fridays with non-traditional office garb (not that we wear traditional office attire anyway) to keep it spunky, funky n’ fresh. Jk, we just like ending our week judging each other’s thematic spirit outfits -- winner gets the spirit day trophy. This is some of our crew reppin’ the schools they went to!
Scavenger Hunt We love our interns. We love them so much that every summer we spend an entire day sending them all over NYC. Our staff comes up with over 150 tasks as they visit all of our BFFs - tasks range from writing embarrassing TMIs in the park to doing a flash mob on the sidewalk. It’s pretty intense.
Kickball Our summers are packed with all sorts of awesome out-of-office events. One of the best parts of a DoSomething.org summer is our weekly kickball games with other New York City organizations we love. The staff and interns united for a (mostly) friendly game of kickball dressed in our custom matching t-shirts. Win or lose, it’s always a great time.
Bake Offs
Starting our Mondays with baked goods? Hell yeah! Here at the office we enjoy our carb competitions of whoever can bake the finest sweet delicacies. A little competition (and sugar) never hurt anyone.
Pre t Pea zel Car nu t ame B l u Bro wnie tter s!
5 WE HAVE A COOL CRIB
Our Crib In 2012, we moved from our office in Union Square to our beloved office in the Flatiron district. Every conference room in the office is named after superheros’ lairs (Xavier’s School is where the magic happens). Our office is laid out in an open space that is great for collaboration, sharing ideas, ringing the gong when a new campaign is launched, and random dance breaks. Who can’t love working in a place with scooters, a disco ball, Pac-Man, and a popcorn machine?! (Answer: No one.)
The Kitchen A place to eat, work, and play foosball and Pac-Man. There are also plenty of free treats that are delivered to us, but, they never last long (we are a hungry bunch)!
orkboard C Z y a J ion! <3 t a iz n a org
Our Motto
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fight for the userâ&#x20AC;? is our motto. Whenever we come up with new ideas we want to make sure our members are the 1st priority. This wall is a reminder of that -- a badass reminder
6 WE’RE AROUND THE WORLD
Global Where are DoSomething.org members? Everywhere! Any young person, ANYWHERE in the world, is a potential member. We currently have partners in countries around the world who help us create the best campaigns for our global members. Right now, we have over 500,000 members in 25 different countries. Cairo is our top city on Facebook (NYC (4) & LA (9) are the only US cities in the top 15). Our global traffic is growing 2.5x faster than our US traffic and 65% of our Facebook likes are from outside the US.
s! k c a rtb razil o p e B R l m a o b r Glo hine f p Jose Jo
ro f a sh u
d ana C m
a
Top Causes Of Our Global Members 1. Intolerance and Discrimination 2. Environment and Animals 3. Health 4. Bullying and Violence 5. Homelessness and Poverty
â&#x20AC;&#x153;I just want to say thank you for making the world a better plac e.â&#x20AC;? -Messa ge from Mal aysia
What’s Next?
Global Members by the thousand
We’re revamping our website and targeting big launches in Brazil and Mexico. All in the fall of 2015. YASSSSS. Our new single platform will dynamically serve our domestic as well as global members. Campaigns will surface based on location and language. We will offer both country specific campaigns as well as global campaigns with aggregated impact. This new single site will provide improved data and the possibility to create new partnership types.
Th a t
’s 19
6,00
0!
Look Out World, Here We Come.
7 WE GET AROUND
Sabbatical After working at DoSomething.org for two years, staff members get a special treat: a 4 week paid sabbatical to volunteer anywhere in the world. Sabbatical gives staff members the opportunity to stretch their activist legs outside the comfort of our Flatiron office to learn how other organizations make an impact. Staff members return from sabbatical with newfound energy and insights to challenge our status quo and keep us fighting for the user.
Freddi e volunt B ologno ee SOMO S red at G Para gu AY in a y!
Staff Experiences WHAT HAVE YOU BROUGHT BACK FROM YOUR SABBATICAL TO DOSOMETHING.ORG?
BEN KASSOY Fukuoka, Japan
I realized how different cultures are around the world -- and how different young people might be from one country to another. If weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to expand globally -- and do it successfully -- we need to have a nuanced and intimate understanding of young people and the world and the issues they face.
WHAT HAVE YOUR BROUGHT BACK FROM YOUR SABBATICAL PERSONALLY?
AARON SCHACHTER
It was rewarding to build something to help people recover from addiction, to see it live on the app store, and to hear positive feedback from SMART Recovery staff and members. It was also amazing to travel to the other side of the world.
SE/Asia
WHAT IMPACT DID YOU MAKE DURING YOUR SABBATICAL?
LIZ EDDY
We launched 5 campaigns while I was in Indonesia (I was on their homepage for a while too! haha). I was able to teach the team about the ideation process and how to make campaigns that are best for the Indonesian population.
Jakarta, Indonesia
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE SABBATICAL? JULIE LORCH London, UK
I turned off my smartphone for a whole month and saw a million more things than I would have had I been staring at a screen. It was amazing to just walk down new streets. The East London street art scene was a highlight. I also loved traveling through the countryside on weekends - the rolling landscapes around York + Whitby were beautiful and inspiring.
8 WE MAKE CAMPAIGNS THAT ARE BIG, LOUD, AND EASY
Campaigns Our 4 million members tackle campaigns that impact causes ranging from homelessness to the environment. DoSomething.org campaigns are fun and creative ways for young people to serve their communities in a way that doesn’t require an old person, a car, or money. Here’s a glimpse of the awesome stuff young people are doing with our campaigns:
THUMB WARS Powered by Sprint, Thumb Wars is one of our largest campaigns. This year, members shared over 80,000 pairs of Thumb Socks, lil’ protective coverings that remind friends not to text and drive. When we ran out official Thumb Socks, members went DIY style and made their own!
PATIENT PLAYBOOKS For kids in hospitals, play can reduce pain, anxiety, and even illness. That’s why over 13,500 members made activity books for kids. Tic tac toe, Mad Libs, word scrambles, and more! Sometimes fun is the best medicine.
#REALPRINCESS Less than 31% of speaking characters in movies are female. Women deserve a voice, both onscreen and off! Our members pushed for representation of strong and complex female characters in the media by drawing their own. Look out: maybe one of the #RealPrincesses will be coming to a screen near you.
TEENS FOR JEANS Over a million young people experience homelessness in US every year. One item they often request: a pair of jeans. This year, powered by AĂŠropostale, over 82,435 members from more than 13,000 school collected 700,000+ pairs of jeans. Over eight years, the campaign has clothed over 5 million young people.
COMEBACK CLOTHES Over 11 million tons of recyclable fabric wrongly ends up in landfills every year. Powered by H&M, our members recycled over 500,000 pounds of clothes to save water, energy, and landfill space. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re welcome, Planet Earth.
9 WE HAVE THE INSIDE SCOOP
TMI Here at DoSomething.org, we know young people. In 2013, we launched TMI â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the first strategy agency that focuses exclusively on helping clients activate young people and create social impact. After all, over 21 years DoSomething.org has become a leader in tech, millennials, and impact. For-profit companies and other not-for-profits have begged us to share our data and insights about how young people think, how to use tech to reach them, and how to motivate them to take action for causes they care about. Now we do just that - - for a good cause. One hundred percent of TMIâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profits go back to DoSomething.org to fuel its awesomeness.
TMIagency.org
@TMI_agency
The Staff ARIA FINGER
GREG PERLSTEIN
GREG THOMAS
President
Director, Strategy, and Partnership
Lead Strategist
KARY PEREZ
LISA BOYD
MAAHIKA SRINIVASAN
Strategist
Our Clients
Senior Strategist
Strategist
10 WE KNOW ALL THE COOL PEOPLE
Corporate Partners Our corporate partners go above and beyond--they pay us to do good stuff and they do it with us. We genuinely love and appreciate these folks. Together, we’re scaling up to make sure we’re staying true to our motto: any cause, anytime, anywhere.
Together, we’re showing one of the best ways to get girls loving -- and kicking butt at -- science: show them what pro scientists actually do!
Together, we’re getting young people to Mentor Up by connecting them with older adults. In February 2015 we sent over 455,306(!) handmade Valentine’s Day cards to “warm up” seniors nationwide.
We joined forces to collect jeans for homeless youth, clothing half of all youth experiencing homelessness across the country.
We teamed up to clean up cigarette butts before they have a chance to harm wildlife or leach toxic chemicals into the environment!
We teamed up with Coke to spread positivity online. Our members Instagrammed a “hashtag selfie” and used the caption to compliment a friend.
We’ve coordinated with our fashionable friends to help young people recycle clothes. Helping the earth one piece of clothing at a time!
Our best friends in the air get us where we need to go (plus entertain us with our own PSAs). Life is good at 10,000 ft. up.
We’ve teamed up with Optum to help dads all over get heart-healthy. This year our members took over 2,000 dads to get their blood pressure checked!
Alongside our long-time partner, we give out Thumb Socks to help young people in the fight against texting and driving.
Thanks to our best pals on the road, our members participated in a scavenger hunt extravaganza of impactful actions this summer.
Our tag team partner in standing up to bullying.
Our Kickass Board Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re sort of like owners, but instead of cutting up the profits (there are none), they give us advice, support, money, and their first-born child.
Steve Buffone
Matt Diamond
John Faucher
Icema Gibbs
Reid Hoffman
Kim Kadlec
Raj Kapoor
Todor Tashev
Darryl Wash
Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
JetBlue
fitmob & Snapfish
Defy Media
JPMorgan Chase
AOL
Omidyar Network
Ascend Ventures
Celebrities We Love
Victoria Justice Comeback Clothes
Joey Graceffa Shawn Mendes #WeAreAble
Notes from Shawn
11 WE’RE COOL AS F*CK
We Act Quickly We care about what young folks care about. We provide outlets for our members to channel their immediate feelings in the aftermath of a traumatic or important event to create impactful change. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s called rapid response.
CHARLESTON 2015 RAPID RESPONSE On the evening of June 17, a white man killed 9 black people outside a church in Charleston, South Carolina. We assembled together as a rapid response team to provide our 2.4 million SMS members with a platform to express their grievances. Within hours we responded to thousands of texts, let our members know that we listen to them, and featured their heartfelt comments on our homepage to show the world that #WeStandwithCharleston.
We’re Pretty Social We’re literally everywhere. We use only the coolest filters on the ‘gram. We’re #obsessed with retweeting members on Twitter. We’re snappin’ away with selfies on scooters. You wanna be a part of the fun? Get @ us!
DoSomething
DoSomething
50,000 Followers
12,000 Followers
@DoSomething
DoSomething
785,000 Followers
439,000 Followers
/dosomething
38383
1.7 Million Followers
2.4 Million Texters
We Get Real For the past 3 years, our Mobile Engagement Manager sent out SMS texts to our members as Alysha. But with tons of chutzpah Freddie felt ready to come out to 2.4 million members as transgender via TEXT. They immediately received thousands of texts, questions, and messages of support. We’re #Ready4Freddie!
*mic drop*