Zuma 2015 Charitable Giving Recap – Change to Giving Back Program

We are always excited to make our annual contributions to the life changing charities we support, and to thank our customers for helping us give back. Zuma was founded with the dream of making a difference in people’s lives simply by selling office supplies, but we couldn’t do anything without our caring, loyal customers.

We also want to announce a change to Zuma’s giving back program taking effect in  November. We’ve been debating the way we promote our giving back program for some time. In a way it is patting ourselves on the back, and somewhat bragging about helping our fellow human beings, as opposed to humbly doing good work. After careful consideration, we have decided to greatly reduce the amount of self-promotion for our giving back program.

Zuma will continue with our founding principles of donating over half our operating profits to charity, but no longer will we ask our shoppers to select the charity they prefer we support at checkout. Zuma will continue our business purpose to Do Good Work through donating over half our profits to charity, volunteer work, our annual Central Texas Food Bank Food drive and more. We will simply do it without as much self-promotion.

We pledge to be a better example of writer Elizabeth Bibesco’s inspiring words:
“Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.”

The V Foundation for Cancer Research

The V Foundation was our #2 most voted for charity!

CUSTOMER CHARITY VOTING RESULTS

In what will be our last Charity Voting recap, this is how our customers voted when purchasing at ZumaOffice.com during our fiscal year 2015, (charities listed in order of votes received). Our annual donations are based on the percentage of votes for each charity.  To learn more about any of the charities, simply click their name:
1. Best Friends Animal Society – Animal Relief & Rescue
2. The V Foundation for Cancer Research – Cancer Research
3. Fisher House Foundation – Military Families
4. Big Brothers / Big Sisters – Children Mentorship
5. SafePlace – Domestic Violence Support
6. Save the Children – Children Aid
7. Salvation Army – Humanitarian Aid
8. Central Texas Food Bank – Hunger Prevention
9. Year Up – Education For Disadvantaged Youth
10. Prison Entrepreneurship Program – Prison Mentorship

GIVING BACK UPDATE

Since our inception, Zuma has donated well over half our profits to worthy causes. In fact the real number is 80%+ of profits. Zuma has donated over $51,000 in cash contributions and in-kind product donations to the charities we support in our short time in business.

In truth, our business and profit plans were to give back even more by this time. However, we underestimated how difficult it is to start a family business from scratch in an ultra-competitive industry like office supplies and truly make a profit, (the increased price competition created by the failed Staples and Office Depot merger certainly have not helped).

You can be a BIG help to our growth! Social media is a personal and free way to help us reach new customers. “Like Us” on Facebook and “Follow Us” on Twitter. Then share our great offers with fellow businesses and your friends to help spread the word. We promise our social media team will make you laugh!

WHY DOES ZUMA GIVE BACK?

People often ask why we give back. Here’s why:
1. To help worthy causes and make a difference in people’s lives!
2. To add meaning to the work life of all Zuma employees.
3. To be an example to other businesses, and encourage others to adopt a similar “giving back” model.
4. To encourage our customers to volunteer time and donate to their favorite charities.

Should you have any questions regarding our giving back business model, Conscious Capitalism, or would like to discuss the changes to our giving back approach, feel free to email me at gpierce@zumaoffice.com or call 877-473-4097. I would love to converse with you.

Thank you for letting us serve you, and in turn helping Zuma serve others.

Please Note: The charities we support are selected by Zuma staff and customer input, and does not reflect an endorsement by those charities of our company or our products. They are simply great organizations we believe in and support.

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