Credera Service Day 2022: Continuing a Tradition of Extraordinary Impact

Michelle Popa and Marisa Steele

Credera Service Day 2022: Continuing a Tradition of Extraordinary Impact

At Credera, we are on a mission to make an extraordinary impact in our communities. Credera Service Day, a Credera Community Impact initiative, is our unique chance to make an extraordinary collective impact by spending a full day in community service across all our US markets.

About Credera Community Impact

In 2020, Credera formalized its commitment to community impact by launching a new program, Credera Community Impact (CCI). CCI serves as Credera’s philanthropic arm, focused on serving people of all ages, backgrounds, and cultures who are circumstantially blocked from reaching their full potential, specifically by providing access to STEM through awareness and education.

CCI is organized into three pillars:

Inspire - directly serving constituents
Create - developing materials and programs that will be used to serve constituents
Amplify - helping our nonprofit partner organizations to more effectively serve their constituents

In addition to year-round volunteer work and community investment, Credera collectively organizes around two signature events: NCLP (Nonprofit Consulting Leadership Program) and our annual Service Day.

Service Day 2022

Service Day, a Credera tradition since 2013, is a day when we step away from our daily work and come together to serve our local communities. On Friday, April 22, 2022, approximately 700 Credera team members participated in 57 events with 27 organizations across 9 cities. There were:

20 Inspire events, where we worked directly with thousands of constituents
22 Create events, where we created over 11,000 education kits and developed 99 unique pieces of re-usable educational content
15 Amplify events, where we helped our nonprofit partners with operational tasks

In a single day, Credera team members contributed over 3,000 hours and ultimately impacted over 72,000 people in our communities. Some examples of the in-person, virtual, and asynchronous events included:

Preparing 2000 STEM kits for Noggin Builders to distribute to local Chicago schools
Hosting a Virtual Read Aloud with LiteracyInc NYC that reached 13,500 children
Creating inspiring career videos for the Dallas Junior Achievement website
Assisting 25,000 listeners through a STEM Career Panel in partnership with TechGirl

Coming out of a season of great uncertainty that resulted in new challenges for so many, we have a strong appreciation for being able to connect with each other while we serve together.

A Deeper Purpose

Service Day is an excellent reminder of the powerful impact a team can have when we work together to make a difference. Small moments with a few hundred individuals can spark a big impact that goes far beyond Service Day itself.

“At Credera, many of us can point to inflection points in our own lives when someone invested in us by providing a nudge or encouragement or engaging us in STEM related activities. Many of us subsequently followed the STEM path to our current careers here at Credera. We want to pay it forward.

I still am so thankful to my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Duerksen, who recognized my interest and encouraged me to be the first girl to join his science club back in 1978. I later learned that before he became a teacher, he was a Lt Col – a pilot and decorated Army veteran, who retired after 25 years of military service. I am so grateful he chose to invest his retirement years sharing his passion for science with elementary school students and now I am paying it forward and multiplying his impact.” - Gail Stout Perry

As Credera expands our global footprint, our mission to give back to our local communities is more important than ever. We stand together for this purpose and are excited by the increasing opportunities to see this mission come to life.

The Journey Ahead

Service Day is only one facet of CCI. Year-round, Credera continues to engage with non-profit organizations that are aligned to our CCI mission. We volunteer, fundraise, and deliver pro-bono projects. We also encourage Credera team members to continue to give their time, energy, and resources to the causes close to their hearts. Together, we hope to ignite lasting change in the communities around us.

The future is bright for our teams and our communities: Rather than stopping when Service Day ends, we are motivated by what our ongoing commitment can do.