WWF symbolic adoptions as a way to give thanks from the Book Sprints team
We found inspiration for digital gifts that works for anyone anywhere, are adorable and even help save the world!
We were looking for a token of gratitude for our amazing Book Sprints team, and finally found a good option: We chose to make a donation to WWF – World Wildlife Fund on behalf of our team, with each team member choosing an endangered species for symbolic adoption. WWF sends a cute certificate via email or physical mail, and if you like, even a stuffed toy version of the chosen animal. Personally I chose a Slow Loris (bottom row, second to left), a species I hadn’t heard of, and since then did lots of research on. If this is WWF’s secret mission, it’s working on me.
These are the endangered species that our Book Sprints team chose for symbolic adoption
Digital gifts are a riddle still to be solved by the growing infrastructure for teams working online all over the globe.
The usual gift cards, subscriptions, and delivery services only ever work in a few limited locations and are – what’s the word – unimaginative? The donation to WWF in the form of symbolic adoptions is the first online gift that we actually liked; it works anywhere, is personalised and makes you feel good. We’ll keep using it as a thank you note in the future!
The Book Sprints team just came together to share a moment of gratitude.
For Book Sprints 2020 was, after all, a good year (we reflected on it in this post). With all the challenges of 2020 came a lot of learning and growth. The pandemic keeps bringing all kinds of trials to our team members living between South Africa, New Zealand, and Europe. Fortunately we’ve all stayed healthy.
And we all pulled together to help our small business change our method from face-to-face workshops to virtual ones. Online facilitation, online writing, online illustration and design tools, a different rhythm of book production – every step of the Book Sprints process had to be reevaluated, adapted, and refined. What seemed impossible in March 2020, is now a tried and tested product: we finished eight virtual Book Sprints since last April, with five more already planned for this spring. Even when face-to-face meetings will be possible again, we know that virtual Book Sprints are here to stay. Time to say a big thank you to the team!
The Book Sprints team celebrating
Our pledge to the environment
In this moment of gratitude, we are reminded of our pledge we made at the beginning of 2020 to become a greener business. In January last year we made a large donation to WWF’s response to the Australian wildfires. We reviewed several charitable organisations and chose WWF for their broad spectrum of actions in response to the wildfires, as well as their medium and long term plans for dealing with likely bushfires in the future. So it seemed just right that we would follow up with another donation this year. Without saving our ecosystems, the pandemic will not be the last of our struggles. And with a few cute new species on the mind, we feel even more motivated.
If you want to read more about our work with WWF, read about a Book Sprint we did together recently.