GiveGab Summer Retreat 2018: Team Culture Is Our Foundation
On August 21-24, 2018, we came together for our annual Summer Retreat in the Catskills mountains of NY.
There were several objectives for this year’s retreat, but the primary goal was to get the team together in one place and spend time with each other.
It is important to break from routine and gain perspective. As the GiveGab team grows, it becomes increasingly important for us to re-affirm the aspect of our culture that makes us great. Great for customers, great at making software and maintaining the platform, and a great place to work.
Exercises at the retreat ranged from creating our own hypothetical nonprofit to a brief history of philanthropy to a game called Werewolf (that some of us get a little TOO into…we won’t mention names!).
But when we did retrospectives toward the end of the retreat, a clear theme came forward: We care about each other, and like working together. Every team has difficulties and challenges, but it is the tenacity with which each person approaches them and the respect that we all have for each other that makes our work together so motivating and rewarding. That comes through in the way that we interact with and serve our customers.
This brings one of our core values to mind: Team Culture is Our Foundation.
We live by this value, but it does not simply happen because we put it on a couple of posters (though the posters are pretty cool).
This is an ongoing process that we need to revisit often. But thankfully that process is rewarding and dare I say fun!
