Our Benefit Event Recap
On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine.
On February 28th, Taras Kulbaba, a Ukrainian national living in Belgium, posted on LinkedIn about his plans to purchase and deliver some basic medicines and first aid kits to the Polish/Ukrainian border. Taras humbly asked his LinkedIn network if anyone could help and send some money to fund the initiative. And the GLOBAL response was significant.
Phil Cox, like many, was moved by Taras’ efforts and was wrestling with ideas of how to do more. Phil was convinced that, if a single LinkedIn post could garner such a response, there had to be something that the international trademark community could do collectively, in an organized way, to support the people of Ukraine. It was here that the idea for Brand Action was born.
Before the end of March, and less than 4 weeks after the start of the war, Alexis Winslow, Jackie Stelling and Bri Van Til had come on board as additional founding volunteers for this initiative.
One of the most important elements of this initiative was to identify the right charities for whom we could raise money - charities that are on the ground in and around Ukraine helping its people in real time.
We chose World Central Kitchen (WCK) and Support Hospitals in Ukraine (SHU) because of their ability to directly support the health and wellbeing of Ukrainian refugees, soldiers, and war victims.
WCK began serving hot meals within hours of the February 24th invasion of Ukraine and quickly set up at the eight border crossings with Poland. WCK continues to distribute fresh food across the region. To date, WCK has served more than 18.7 million meals and transported 8.9+ million pounds of food across Ukraine and 7 other neighboring countries impacted by the war.
Support Hospitals in Ukraine has been supplying medicine and surgical equipment to Ukraine since 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and a part of Donbass. Between 2014 and 2021, SHU has delivered these life-saving supplies worth more than $4 million. As a result of the war, SHU has shifted its efforts from supplying medical equipment to tactical medicine and field surgery supplies.
We believe we chose wisely.
After securing our first Swan sponsor, Caribbean IP, we realized that organizing a fundraiser might actually be within reach (although there were many moments of doubt as to whether we’d actually be able to pull it off!).
With just 5 weeks to go until thousands of our colleagues from around the world would gather in Washington D.C. for the International Trademark Association (INTA) Annual Meeting, the Brand Action team set about to work out the logistics and put the details of the fundraiser into place.
By the time we showed up in Washington on Saturday, April 30th, the Brand Action initiative had already raised more than $60,000 for our two amazing charities World Central Kitchen (WCK) and Support Hospitals in Ukraine (SHU) and more than 200 tickets had been purchased for the fundraising event. And over the next 3 days, we surpassed $40,000 in sponsorship pledges (designated for SHU) and sold more than 340 tickets (totaling more than $34,000 in donations to WCK, an amount that will mean approximately 3400 meals to be served to people at the Polish/Ukrainian border
While this was an idea conceived by a few, it was an effort made hugely successful by the many – the sponsors, the donors, the event attendees and the many volunteers who answered our calls, jumped on Zoom meetings to offer their expertise, donated countless hours of their time to produce impactful content or showed up on the night of the event to help us man the line at the door.
Sometimes it takes a village. And our wonderful trademark community is just that, but on a global scale!
We are tremendously grateful to our Swan, Dove and Bluebird sponsors (list below)
We are also so elated that the fundraiser on that Tuesday night in D.C. was such a success and, by the feedback we received from attendees, apparently a pretty enjoyable event, as evidenced by this photo gallery. Thank you to those of you that were able to make time during a busy INTA schedule to join us.
We must say a special thank you to our Ukrainian colleagues who shared their stories for our website and the amazing Brand Action video. Your stories are very personal but, we recognize, unfortunately not unique. You were in our thoughts when we conceived the Brand Action initiative, and you remain in our thoughts and prayers to this day. We will continue to support you in whatever way we can.
As of the writing of this communication, Brand Action has raised approximately $88,000 to benefit our two designated charities. Please stay tuned for news about how these funds will directly go to support the people of Ukraine.
Unfortunately, the war, and the need to support is far from over. So, our hope is that, by the end of the month, through your support, word of mouth, and some continued online promotion, we can surpass the $100K mark! Please help us to spread the word, and ask your friends and colleagues to consider donating to one of our two amazing charities—World Central Kitchen and Support Hospitals in Ukraine.
We, the founding volunteers of Brand Action, have been forever changed by this initiative and we look forward to things to come. Because, unfortunately, there will always be injustices in the world and people in need, and we see what can happen when we bring this global community together to support such an important cause. Our job is far from over.
Our hope is that we will continue to come together in times like these, and provide the type of support that only an amazing community like ours can achieve.
With all of our thanks and admiration,
The Founding Volunteers of Brand Action
Phil, Taras, Jackie, Alexis and Bri
Swan sponsors: BrandIT and Caribbean IP
Dove Sponsors: Arent Fox Schiff, BlankRome, Corsearch, Federis, Husch Blackwell, Irwin Mitchell, The McGrady Family, Nordemann, Oppenheim, Thompson Coburn, Trademarks On Point, Von Seidels, and Ware Fressola Maguire & Barber,
Bluebird Sponsors: Alt Legal, BMA Advogados, Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, Katz Group, Norvell IP, and Olivares.
Find out more about the birth of Brand Action and the charities we support here.
