Achievements of the Heart

It seemed at first like the usual incentive travel program. Ingram Micro’s suppliers and customers filed into breakfast at their Hawaiian digs expecting to hear about the team-building activity the Santa Ana, CA-based computer distributor had scheduled at its annual Super Bowl party. But there would be no tricycle race at a beach Olympics this year.

The 125 guests should have been tipped off by the request to bring old clothes. The featured speaker was the director of the local homeless shelter, where the group would be put to work on badly needed repairs.

Team-building programs are adopting a new slant. Community service is emerging, driven partly by travel agencies or corporate in-house departments trying to keep things fresh and different. You can only make so many videos, have so many sand castle-building competitions. But the larger reason for weaving community service into incentive travel programs is the character-building and experiential value they impart to participants.

“These activities have more meat to them than games. Our guests get a great sense of accomplishment,” says Ingram Micro’s corporate events director Marcia Willett. “It gives them food for thought about what they can do to help their own communities,”

On the big island of Hawaii, Ingram Micro’s guests responded beyond the call of duty once they got over their initial surprise. The task force had the 19 shelters at the Ka HaLe O’ Kawaihae facility painted by the mid-morning coconut break. Then they moved on to landscaping and building a playground for the shelter’s 43 children. When top officers from computer companies like Corporate Technologies, Norwood, MA, and EnPointe Technologies, Los Angeles, saw the backward state of the facility’s computer room, they almost fainted. The guest companies donated six computer systems along with a laundry list of other items from bunk beds to a van.

“They are very competitive. You know, ‘My house is better painted than your house,'” says Willett.

With its adrenaline still churning, the team topped off the work day by mounting an unsolicited pledge drive, raising $40,000 for the homeless complex.

“I’ve never done a team-building activity that brought people together like this,” says Willett.

Willett has since run a similar corporate cleanup at a Santa Ana home for abandoned children, and is planning a second Hawaii Super Bowl event for January on Maui.

“Our executives are encouraging us to think more along this line. It’s much more rewarding for the participant. I get letters to this day. They don’t write about the parties and the food,” says Willett.

DOING GOOD AROUND THE GLOBE Looks like a trend is blooming. “I think these types of programs are just beginning to surface,” says Bobbie Roth, executive director of House of Lloyd, the Kansas City-based direct selling association.

The company has a history of anonymous philanthropy, so project-based travel seemed to make sense, says Roth.

Next February, for two weeks, Roth will take 300 top salespeople and their guests to Kenya. The travelers will bring books for schools and possibly visit an orphanage. “The schools desperately need books. Some of the students can read English. But we will provide books with a lot of pictures,” says Roth.

The House of Lloyd did its first community work back in 1991 when travel-winners toted Russian-language comic books on biblical subjects into Leningrad for church groups who wanted literature for the children. Roth sourced the books from a church group in the U.S.

“People want a chance to interact today, as opposed to being just tourists. They want to invest time, thought, and energy in the community,” says Roth.

Travel planner Sandy Amorde agrees that travel with the intrinsic reward of community service is a trend to watch, particularly for those with Generation X employees. “My clients get excited about it – mostly smaller corporations that are more people oriented. Large companies can get jaded,” says the head of Irvine, CA-based Amorde Incentive Travel.

Why are Generation Xers more attuned to community service? “At least fifty percent are coming out of divorced homes,” comments Amorde. “They are more transient, more adaptable, and far more independent.”

So for incentive groups who think Elvis’s last name is Costello, you may want to hold the Mai Tais until the sun’s down. Once unshackled from their computers, these young men and women crave stimulating interaction with other people. It’s the high-tech, high-touch scenario come to life in incentive travel.

Planning travel around a community service theme is no picnic.

On top of the usual travel considerations, you’ve got to plan the project, most likely working with local service agencies and perhaps government bureaus.

Before the first plane reservation is even made, event planners must think through the award, giving consideration to the type of company and the appropriate project, says incentive travel planner Sandy Amorde.

A company with a family orientation could be paired with a program working with local schools. A medical products company is a potential contributor at an orphanage.

“I have a client that operates a string of vocational centers. We might want to create an education-related project,” says Amorde.

Socially aware clients also need to find a destination management company willing to work on the project, and then listen to what they have to say.

“You must have a fabulous destination management company willing to create something that has never been done before,” says Amorde.

Marcia Willett started with the destination management company in Hawaii when planning Ingram Micro’s homeless shelter program to find out what they thought was possible.

Remember, although your team will come away with incredibly positive feelings about the experience, they’ll often start out with trepidation. You want things to go smoothly.

A Dow Chemical vp who was less than thrilled when he found out his award as a top sales performer would be to live in a dormitory, eat cafeteria food, and perform hard manual labor.

“He said ‘You’ve got to be kidding,'” recounts Bill Mecke, director of marketing, Habitat for Humanity, Americus, Ga. The Dow exec is now one of the charity’s biggest supporters.