Let’s do some good for nothing!

Culture | August 10th, 2016

By Jeff Knight

Who is Good for Nothing?

Ben Hamilton, Shelley Szudera, and Jeff Knight (all board members of AAF-ND) along with a handful of awesome event volunteers.

What is Good for Nothing?

It’s a volunteer organization devoted to doing good for the community. Good for Nothing started in the UK and Fargo is the first chapter in the United States. Good for Nothing invites a group of volunteers to give their time and talent to various organizations for no monetary reimbursement. While the group has been around for a couple of years, this is the Fargo group’s first organized 24-Hour gig.

What’s so special about it?

It’s fun! Like a startup weekend, but intended to give back our talents to the community in a single 24-hour experience (not overnight, and people can come and go as needed).

For this upcoming event, we plan to host volunteers in the marketing field for a 24-hour event worked with a small handful of selected non-profit organizations. It starts at 6pm on Friday and goes till 6pm on Saturday.

We want people to volunteer their time in a relaxed, very chill kind of atmosphere. There will be coffee, beer, meals and snacks while we allow the professionals to do what they’re best at. The volunteer pool is made up of advertising professionals, graphic designers, social media experts, web developers, writers, project managers, etc. The ticketing is split up among the various skills we’re looking for.

What are the non-profit orgs?

Unfortunately, we won’t be giving out the names of the non-profits until the opening night. We want people to sign up for the broader concept of giving back instead of not signing up because of a specific group or organization. But, there is a mixed variety so there should be something for everyone.

Will people choose the organization they work for or is it assigned?

People are free to choose the organization they want to create work for. But, we encourage our participants to spread the wealth. For example, if one organization is full of designers, we’ll ask them if anyone would be willing to work on another organization.

What can people expect to be doing?

Our team has vetted the chosen organizations and interviewed their responses to know what their needs are. It’s Good for Nothing’s responsibility to communicate those needs to the volunteers. It could be a new logo, a press release, a social media plan, an email template, etc. Mostly we want to supply marketing work that these organizations could really use, but may not have the funds to access.

Free food?

Yep, there’s food from Blackbird Pizza, Wurst Bier Hall, beer from Fargo Brewing Company, Coffee from Atomic. And more provided at the event.

Can you still sign up?

Yes! We’re hoping to have a group of around 40 creative professionals help out with these organization’s needs. At this time we’re still looking for some people to fill out some of those seats so, if this interests anyone, check the Eventbrite page and sign up!

Good for Nothing is an event hosted by AAF-ND (American Advertising Federation of North Dakota) and their Public Service committee.

More info can be found on www.goodfornothingfargo.org

IF YOU GO

Friday August 19-20 6pm

FREE Tickets are required for entry and can be obtained at: http://goodfornothingfargo.org/gig2016

21+ only

Prairie Den on Broadway, 122½ Broadway N

Who to contact:

fargo@goodfornothing.com