This company loved to host fundraisers for local charities. One fundraiser brought to my attention was "candy grams" — a substitute for sending Valentines to show appreciation for coworkers. The file I was given to look at was a letter-sized Word doc with two rectangles and "to:___" "from:___" on it. I pitched illustrated animals with related, encouraging puns and fun-size candy bars attached. I illustrated the characters and handwrote a word per page.

The initiative raised over $700 company-wide our second year, with cards selling at $1 per. This initiative stood out to me because I was able to flex my creativity muscles and make the experience fun. I'd have loved to prepare the cards by sourcing printing in advance to make it even easier to distribute, or possibly a digital distribution to cut costs even more.