The Family Partnership | Charity of the Month

Innovative Office Solutions is the proud sponsor of the Charity of the Month program in partnership with the Minnesota Wild. The program brings exposure to Minnesota Charities, once per month throughout the NHL season.

This month’s charity is The Family Partnership

One in four children live in poverty, we think even one is too many. The Family Partnership was founded in 1878, to stop the mistreatment of children, and respond to the fallout from poverty.  The Family Partnership envisions a Twin Cities where all children and families have the opportunity to succeed and realize their full potential.

The Family Partnership combats the effects of poverty and creates brighter futures through three service areas; Counseling, Advocacy and Education. The Family Partnership is one of the longest-serving nonprofits in the Twin Cities and helps the community’s most distressed children and families to overcome crises and serious challenges, heal from trauma, gain new skills and life directions, and achieve a better future.

The Family Partnership works across the metro area from 6 service centers in urban & suburban neighborhoods but also goes when and where they are needed; to homes, shelters, food shelves, schools, faith communities, jails and prisons.

COUNSELING: Professional mental health therapists provide individual & family counseling; therapy groups for girls, boys, women & men; children’s play therapy; and in-home counseling. This improves well-being for people in troubling times. Multicultural, multilingual therapists help people heal and move ahead from child abuse, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, and trauma. The Family Partnership helps people manage disorders, chemical recovery, and the stress of lifetime poverty. The Family Partnership helps maltreated infants regain positive attachment; children and teens change damaging behaviors, move on from delinquency, and turn around failing school performance.

EDUCATION: The Family Partnership serves high-risk kids age 16 months to 18 years old. For toddlers and preschoolers, The Family Partnership offers multicultural, bi-lingual therapeutic preschools in inner-city neighborhoods, where they reverse the impacts of poverty and trauma, and advance children’s delayed learning. The young children served by The Family Partnership have developmental delays, and they provide therapies such as speech/language, occupational, physical, and neurological music therapies to help brains and bodies grow strong.  Parent education and supportive services increase family stability and enhance child-rearing skills. The Family Partnership offers enrichment programs for older children and youth who are experiencing challenges in school and in life. The Family Partnership provides three, six, and nine-month coaching to help youth improve behavior, academic performance, school attendance, and build life skills for ongoing success. They also operate youth leadership programs that prevent teen pregnancy, spark youth leadership and community service, and inspire teens for a better future.

ADVOCACY: The Family Partnership works to get people out of poverty by helping struggling families gain access to jobs, training, and housing.  Individual advocacy efforts help victims of sexual exploitation, abuse, violence, and bullying to get the help they need, and succeed on action plans for a safe, self-reliant future.  Grassroots leadership training helps those in poverty discover undeveloped talents, and they create and lead projects that improve neighborhoods and solve community problems. The Family Partnership advocates at the legislature and with policymakers for policy changes and resources to support children and families. The Family Partnership offers support, resources and training for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and questioning) kids, their families and schools and offer several programs focused on violence prevention programming.

The Family Partnership is here for anyone who needs our help. For more than a century, our commitment has never wavered from helping children and families in poverty and distress build brighter futures for themselves.

For more information or to contact The Family Partnership visit www.thefamilypartnership.org

Cookie Cart | Charity of the Month

Innovative Office Solutions is the proud sponsor of the Charity of the Month program in partnership with the Minnesota Wild. The program brings exposure to Minnesota Charities, once per month throughout the NHL season.

Baking Bright Futures at Cookie Cart

You might be familiar with Cookie Cart’s delicious cookies, but Cookie Cart is so much more than just a bakery, it is an employment and training program located in North Minneapolis that provides teens with lasting and meaningful work, life and leadership skills. Through a combination of hands-on work experience, classroom job skills training, formal customer service education, skills certification and financial literacy, young people gain the tools they need to become successful, self-reliant adults. For more on Cookie Cart’s impact check out our website  and for regular updates about what is going on go to our Facebook page.

Cookie Cart’s Programming

As a place of success, Cookie Cart’s impact is reflected in the young people that show up each week. At any given time, 50 to 75 youth take part in after school and summer “hands on” experiential employment and classroom-based training focused on “soft skills” needed to find and keep employment. In 2012, Cookie Cart will provide over 20,000 hours of paid youth employment and training for 140 teens making it the largest year-round employer of teenagers on the north side of Minneapolis.

Earn as you learn is the philosophy that offers young people the opportunity to gain job-readiness skills, employment experience and proficiency certification while making a modest wage. Focusing on building real-world skills and competencies, Cookie Cart is driven by its mission, not sales. We offer a positive learning environment that cannot be matched by any profit-driven enterprise. Supervisors are teachers, and teaching takes priority over cookie production. Mistakes are treated as learning opportunities, and all lessons are given in the context of how things will work at traditional jobs.

Support, hope and a safe haven for neighborhood kids are the concepts that Cookie Cart was founded on when in the early 1980’s Sister Jean Thuerauf who lived and served in North Minneapolis, recognized a need to get young people off the streets away from gangs and crime. She invited the neighborhood’s youth into her home for help with schoolwork and to learn to bake cookies. Eventually, so many showed up that they no longer fit in her small kitchen.  In 1988, her vision of a safe, secure engaging place for neighborhood youth was formalized as Cookie Cart moved to the heart of North Minneapolis on West Broadway Avenue. Today, Cookie Cart is a leading youth development program, having positively impacted thousands of teenagers over it 30 year history – propelling them forward to lead positive and prosperous lives.

Cookie Cart’s impact is growing. Our dream is to triple the number of youth employment and training hours by 2015. Join our efforts to reach out to even more young people and give them the hope for their future. Find out more on our website at http://www.cookiecart.org/and become one of the many who are working to create a world with Good Cookie Karma.

2013 Catalog Covers | Hometown Team

So you received our 2013 catalog in the mail and you might be wondering, why are there people on the front dressed up as cheering fans?

It’s the third installment of a theme we began in 2011 featuring real Innovative employees and the creative use of Post-it Notes. In 2011, we thought we’d mix things up a little and instead of pictures of boring office products on the covers, we’d feature our employees in a fun way. At Innovative we’re all about the people, and we wanted that personality to come through a little on our catalogs.

Our 2011 cover featured Account Executive Sarah Johnson showing off a custom made Post-it Note dress. This cover was inspired by a Vogue magazine style, and a dress that another Account Executive, Karla Gunderson, made for Sarah to wear in an employee “fashion runway contest”.

 

 

 

 

 

In 2012 we decided to keep the theme going, this time with the men in Post-it Note suits, inspired by a GQ magazine cover. The men featured in 2012 were Account Executive John Townsend, and Director of Educational Furniture Bob Nelson.

 

 

 

 

 

So that brings us to 2013. This year we decided to showcase a few of our local sports partnerships. We’re the official office products supplier to the Minnesota Wild, Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Twins. They’re our hometown teams and we’re your hometown supplier of office products, so we brought that theme to life on the 2013 cover.

However, instead of having just one cover we decided to mix it up a little and have three, one for each team. Customers were randomly sent one of the teams as their catalog this year. As with prior years, these covers all feature real Innovative employees who volunteered to have their faces painted and cheer like crazy fans under a rain of Post-it Note ticker tape. We hope you like them!

 

  

Dress for Success | Charity of the Month

Hockey is back! Therefore, so is the Charity of the Month program!

Innovative Office Solutions is the proud sponsor of this program in partnership with the Minnesota Wild. The program brings exposure to Minnesota Charities, once per month throughout the NHL season.

The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.

Dress for Success Twin Cities is working to end poverty in our community by helping economically disadvantaged women achieve self-sufficiency through gainful employment.

How to get involved!

Currently, the largest needs are for volunteers and financial support. No clothing donations are being accepted currently.

Upcoming Events

4th Annual Sweet Success Luncheon will be held April 26th, 2013. Please go to www.dressforsuccess.org/twincities to learn more and reserve your seat!

Individual Volunteer Opportunities

Image Coach –  Image Coaching is an enjoyable and rewarding way to boost a woman’s confidence and make a direct impact on our clients’ lives. Volunteers work one-on-one with a Dress for Success client to help her select her professional attire and to provide support and coaching as she prepares for her interview.

Clothing Inventory Maintenance – Organizing the apparel received by Dress for Success is an important and ongoing task. We always need volunteers who can help sort donations by size and season, change inventory and organize the racks.

Corporate Volunteer Opportunities

Mock Interview Sessions – Many of our corporate partners bring together groups of employees to host mock interview sessions with our clients. These sessions offer rewarding and empowering experience for both corporate partners and our clients.

Clothing Inventory Maintenance – Our corporate partners often get together as a group and donate a few hours to come into to our boutique and help us organize, sort and hang the apparel received through donations.

Speakers for Professional Women’s Group – Speakers are needed to discuss career development topics in the areas of work, financial literacy, and life skills. Speaking to Professional Women’s Group members is a wonderful way to meet motivated women who want to further develop and advance in their careers.

To make a financial donation or learn more, visit our website at www.dressforsuccess.org/twincities

National Day of Service

National Day of Service. What is it? It’s a day on which the first family is asking Americans to find an event and serve with others in the community. It’s designed to honor the life and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and inspire us all to commit to serving our community. You can find out more here http://www.2013pic.org/service/serve

Led by our CFO, Brooks Smith, Innovative decided to get involved. We’re big on our community and are always looking for ways to have a positive impact.

Due to the fact that a number of Innovative employees have children in active duty in the military we decided to assist the Fisher House (www.fisherhouse.org), a program that supports America’s military in their time of need.

The Fisher House was in need of donations of paper products, such as paper towels, bathroom tissues and toilet paper. Also cleaning supplies, toiletries, dish soap and canned goods.

 

Brooks put out the call to action and Innovative employees stepped up with generous donations. Brooks delivered our donation to the Fisher House on Saturday and was giving a brief tour of the two homes located near the VA Hospital in Minneapolis. These homes can house up to 30 individuals so that they can be close to loved ones who have served in the armed forces and are undergoing medical procedures at the VA Hospital.

Thanks to all of the Innovative employees who made this possible!

Charity of the Month – Canvas Health

Innovative Office Solutions is the proud sponsor of the Minnesota Wild Charity of the Month program for the fourth consecutive year. This program brings exposure to Minnesota charities, once per month throughout the NHL season.

Canvas Health is dedicated to bringing hope, healing, and recovery to people’s lives.  Each year Canvas Health programs serve more than 8,500 children, adolescents, adults, and elderly challenged with debilitating aspects of mental illness, chemical misuse, aging, or physical and sexual abuse.  Crisis Connection answers more than 42,000 calls annually from individuals in crisis and needing help.

Psychiatry

Canvas Health professionals will ask you how you’re feeling and evaluate the best option; medications are not always the first choice for clients. Through a comprehensive assessment, Canvas Health will determine the options that make the most sense for you. Canvas Health’s experienced team of psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses are equipped to meet the needs of all populations – from early childhood to adolescent to adult. They provide evaluations for medication and medication management and provide consultations for other providers.

“1 in 17 Americans have a serious mental illness; 1 in 5 families are affected.”   – National Alliance of Mental Illness, 2010

Counseling

At times in one’s life – whether caused by life experience or a biological imbalance– one’s perspective can become tainted, blurred or distorted. The purpose of counseling is to help you cope with the challenging situations that arise in life, and to help you live the life you’d like to create. Canvas Health does this by listening to you, supporting you, inspiring you, and referring you to whatever resources you may need. Canvas Health offers a broad range of counseling services and treatment to children and adults, including individual, family, and group therapy. Canvas Health does full screenings and assessments, and provides case management to ensure that nothing is missed.  Access to psychiatry, psychological testing, and crisis services provide clients with a comprehensive and individualized team of treatment providers should the need arise.

“20% of children ages 0-18 have a diagnosable mental illness that interferes with their ability to learn, make friends, and develop healthy family relationships.”   – National Institute of Mental Health

Chemical Health

Canvas Health provides substance abuse treatment in a variety of forms and settings for adults and adolescents which includes group, individual and family counseling.  All members of the Canvas Health staff are licensed alcohol and drug counselors, and are available to evaluate and help manage chemical use problems. Canvas Health provides Rule 25 assessments, educational programming, relapse prevention and housing programs, offering a broad spectrum of resources to their clients.

“With the knowledge Canvas Health helped create, I will be able to maintain my sobriety and give back to my community by helping those still struggling with addiction.”   – Robert

Specialty Programs

A wide array of services provided by Canvas Health help support the needs of those with mental illness, assisting them with the practical necessities and means to improve the quality of their lives. Services include transportation, housing, vocational assistance and coordination services.

“When I felt alone and wanted to give up, the people at Canvas Health provided me hope.”    - Shelly, Day Treatment client

Canvas Health offers services in the home, in schools, in the community, and through their offices.

For more information, or to schedule an appointment, please call (651) 777-5222 or visit www.CanvasHealth.org

INtern Awards and Year Recap

INtern Awards and Year Recap

As the summer winds down so does our internship here at Innovative.  It was an eventful three months and I can say with confidence that each one of the INterns came away with an invaluable experience.   We were given a phenomenal opportunity to learn more about the sales world and gain skills that will lead us to success in our future careers.  I believe we did our best to fully take advantage of that.  To conclude the first year of the INtern program we would like to nominate each INtern for an end-of-year award and recognize the progress that we have made during the summer.

Most Valuable Intern – Max Smith

There is truly not a more experienced intern in the nation than Max Smith.   Entering his fifth year, Max was primed to repeat as MVI.  His countless hours of cold-calling and willingness and determination to go on as many lunch meetings as possible made this happen.

Comeback Intern of the Year – Luke Trepanier

He returned for a monster year in his second year after finishing runner-up in the MVI race during his rookie-campaign.  Experts considered him to be a shoe-in for the award all year long seeing as he was the only candidate after Max won Most Valuable Intern.

Sportsmanship Award – Peter Burke

No intern has handled adversity with more grace than Peter Burke.  His demeanor in and out of the office is that of a true competitor.  His post-race interview after his chair-racing victory at the Innovative Cup was truly moving.   The man has an incomparable respect for the game and his opponents.  What a class act.

Offensive Rookie of the Year – Drew Bjordal

Drew has gained an impressive reputation all across the Midwest in only his first year.  Geography is no limitation for Drew and he has an unheralded ability to close accounts with his charm and good looks.  He would like to dedicate this award to his mentor and close, close friend, Sarah Johnson.

Defensive Rookie of the Year – Eric Ritacco

Eric’s ability to defend his company against any and all opposing vendors is earth-shattering.  Rumor has it that Eric “The Stone Wall” Ritacco has stopped several companies from tapping into our business simply by giving them a death stare.

JV Intern of the Year – Tony Companion

While he did not play on the varsity team this year, Tony maintained a great work ethic throughout the year.  His hustle and positive attitude were both an inspiration to everyone in the office.  I’m confident that Tony will continue his tireless effort all year and make a case for the varsity squad next summer; he is a true spark plug.

And that rounds out the Intern awards for this summer.  We would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that contributed to our blog and helped us out along the way, it was an incredible journey.  I’m excited to see what next years INterns have in store for the program.

Signing off one last time,

The INterns

The Art of Being Rejected

Soichiro Honda once said, “Success is 99% failure.”  If that’s true, which I believe it is, the interns have had a very successful summer thus far.  If a salesman can persuade one out of ten people to meet with him, he’s had a good day.  If that same salesman can convince even half of those people to buy something, he’s had a great day.  And if that very same salesman can convince you, the reader, that this blog is funny, then he should retire with no complaints.

In the spirit of rejection each INtern will share his most interesting cold-call failure (anonymously of course).  Leave a comment with your guess as to who said what for a chance to win four tickets to the Minnesota Twins game on Wednesday, August 29^th at 7:10 PM vs. the Seattle Mariners!

Intern #1

“On this particular day my confidence was pretty low.  One woman had already told me that I should dress nicer and another told me that I should never contact their organization again for any reason.  I figured that my day couldn’t get much worse so I walked in to the next building and gave my sales pitch.  Before I could even finish, the gentleman stopped me and asked, “How long have you been doing this?” I said, “A couple weeks, why?”  “That was a pretty bad sales pitch” “…” “Your posture was bad, you didn’t have great eye contact and your voice was monotone” “Can I try again?” “No, I’m still not interested.” “Dang it, okay have a nice day sir.”

Intern #2

“One time a fellow INtern and I were walking into a local business hoping to land an account.  We walk in with high confidence and are ready to sell.  Before we even get done telling the receptionist who we are, and asking if they have ever heard of Innovative before, she yells at us and explains that, “We get more people in here trying to sell us stuff than we have people walking in here to buy stuff.  That’s why there’s a ‘No soliciting’ sign on the door, now get out!”  We said we were sorry and slowly walked out of the office as we tried not to laugh.”

Intern #3

“Once I walked into a computer company and the lady at the front desk was having trouble with her own computer.  She told me that she wasn’t really a ‘computer person’ and asked me to help.  After messing around with her computer for about 15 minutes I finally fixed her problem.  She was very grateful and I asked if she was interested in sitting down for a meeting.

“Yeah, no thanks.”

Intern #4

“I walked in to Brunswick Zone with another INtern and had some trouble figuring out where the front office would be.  The first two adults to catch my eye were sitting behind what looked to be a desk.  I approached them without asking if they worked there – rookie mistake.  Halfway through my sales pitch I was interrupted by one of the adults, “Umm, I don’t work here, I’m just here watching my kids play in the arcade.”

Intern #5

“The cold-call couldn’t be going any better.  The woman I’m speaking with is very receptive to my sales pitch.  She’s giving me great eye contact, nodding her head and seeming eager to hear more.  At the end of my speech I ask her if she’d be interested in getting a free quote and she looks me dead in the eye and says, “You know that your company is our biggest competitor, right?”

Leave your guesses as to which INtern (Max, Luke, Pete, Drew, Eric) said what for a chance to win the tickets.   If you guess all five correctly, you will be entered for a chance to win.  Make sure to leave an email address so that we can reach you if you’re a winner.

-The INterns

What People Think We Do

Lately, many of our friends, family members, and co-workers have been asking us a difficult question, “What do you guys actually do?”. It’s a fair enough inquiry, but not an easy one to answer.  We recently posted a video to poke fun at the fact that many of our peers give us a hard time for slacking during office hours.  While this is not entirely true, we do acknowledge there are certain perks to being an INtern.  This prompted us to take an outside look at how various people in our lives perceive our working conditions.

What My Friends Think I Do:

Sales training

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What My Mom Thinks I Do:

Brainstorming

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Society Thinks I Do:

This doesn’t taste like hot chocolate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What My Boss Thinks I Do:

Crunching numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Think I Do:

Reviewing a $100 million dollar deal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Actually Do:

Preparing to “Meet with clients”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looks like a typical day in the office to me.

Thanks for reading and please keep up with our antics on Facebook and Youtube.  We encourage you to comment on our page and are always willing to answer your questions.  Keep an eye out for out next video promoting an upcoming event with the Minnesota Twins, it’s sure to be a big “hit”!

-The INterns

INterns by the Numbers

To briefly re-cap last week’s post: We included a short biography, a fun fact, and a picture for each INtern.  The intent was to put a face to the five-headed creative genius that is “The INterns”.  In light of this week’s sales meeting we’ve decided to try a different approach at introducing the INterns—the numbers game.

Every salesperson understands the significance of the numbers.  They make or break your quarter.  They make you laugh, they make you cry, and they make you do crazy things sometimes.  And the best part of it all?  They never lie (unless of course it’s the end of the month and you are still short of your quota).  This week let’s take a look at the lighter side of the numbers.

Employment History
Number of jobs held: 19
Number of jobs held not including mowing lawns: 15

Relationship
Total INterns: 5
Single INterns: 4 (Can you guess who’s tied down?)
INterns that, “Don’t really even want a girlfriend”: 4

Productivity
Cold-calls made: 357
Cold-calls actually made: 246
Appointments set up: 35
Appointments set up not including the doctor: 33
Or dentist: 32

Social
INtern Facebook page ‘likes’: 56
Blog posts: 2
Videos posted: 1
Video views: 137
Video views not by interns: 64

Miscellaneous
Highest number of cups of coffee consumed in one day:  21
Highest number of bathroom trips in one day: 28
Most consecutive days wearing the same shirt: 6
Most consecutive days telling people that, “I just washed it last night”: 6

Bonus
Age of the youngest INtern in history: 3 months

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The numbers are truly staggering.

Please take a look at our Facebook page, and YouTube channel
-The INterns