Build Then Bless
If you’re familiar with Lemonade Stand, you’ve probably heard at least one of our team members talk about Build Then Bless.
So what is Build Then Bless?
It’s the program we use to enable our team members to serve others in their lives—outside of work, independent of anything else to do with Lemonade Stand. Each team member receives funds each month to use to bless someone’s life in whatever way they choose.
It’s the entire purpose behind our company. It is our motto, mantra, goal, way of life, etc. The basic idea behind it is that we exist as a profitable business so that we can bless the lives of anyone around us or the world. We are building a company so that, in turn, we can use it to bless.
By saying this, I do not mean that we are trying to change the world through digital marketing. Although we do feel that our work makes a difference for hundreds of other businesses who are all trying to grow to support people and their families, this isn’t the entire idea behind Build Then Bless. The business that we create, or the product that we sell, to some extent, is completely irrelevant.
Build Then Bless goes well beyond that. The point of this is to help and bless people without any expectation of receiving anything in return. It is also used to build our own team and help all of our team members grow into the best kind of people that they can possibly be.
Build Then Bless is all about creating moments of service and helping real people as well as getting our own people into the mindset to always be looking outside of themselves and looking at the bigger picture of the world and seeing how they can help others.
How does Lemonade Stand do it?
There are many, many ways that someone can do this. In fact, I wouldn’t say that there is even a “right way” to do it. As long as it is helping someone other than yourself, it’s building and blessing.
The program that we have built at our company, though, has been absolutely amazing for us. We are actually hoping to be able to help other companies institute a similar structure and program for building and blessing within their own teams. Please reach out if you would like to have us help you set this up!
Let me explain a little more about what that program actually is. First of all, we use Divvy, and we absolutely love Divvy. It allows us to allow our team members to have controlled use of company funds for the things that we need. It’s awesome!
One of those things is our Build Then Bless program! Each team member that we have receives a company credit card from Divvy. We are then able to use this to allocate a small amount of funds to each team member that they are then able to use for blessing others.
We encourage our team members to use this on face-to-face interactions with people as they go about their lives.
The next part of this is where it gets really, really cool. Each Friday we have a lunch and learn with our entire team. Everyone gets lunch, and we go over a few key items from our company and learn something from each other. As a final part of that lunch and learn, we have team members share stories about opportunities that they have had throughout the week to bless people. This is the best and most inspiring part about the entire program. Hearing all of the stories about things that our team members are out doing for other people is so incredibly rewarding. It is also inspiring to all of our other team members. Hearing something extraordinary that someone has been a part of makes other people want to go out and be part of something similar. The program continues to grow as all of us share stories and ideas on how to better serve those around us.
What’s Next?
Like I said, we want Build Then Bless to be something that other companies and people can be a part of. We want this to be a whole, world-wide movement!
That being said, we have recently started a Build Then Bless Instagram page where we will be sharing cool updates and stories about all things serving. Please help that page to grow by following us and sharing your own stories with the hashtag #BuildThenBless or through DMs to our page. Our dream is to have everyone in the world participating in this and getting out to serve others!
Another way that we want to promote Build Then Bless is by helping other companies to institute similar programs to what we have going on at Lemonade Stand. If you are interested in hearing more about that, please reach out to us here. We would love to take a look at your organization and see how you might be able to implement a Build Then Bless program among your team members!
Stay tuned with our Instagram page as well as this blog to keep hearing about #BuildThenBless and to be inspired by all of the cool stories that we will share!