When the Game Is for Charity, Everyone Wins
By Jason, MATLAB developer
When I came to MathWorks in 2000, charity and volunteering were activities that I admired, but only participated in occasionally. Back in those days, we would have company breakfasts every Wednesday, and any employee could host a table to talk about an activity they were involved in. A lot of those tables were hosted by staff participating in the MathWorks “A-Thon” matching program, which still exists today. If you are fundraising as part of a marathon or other event, MathWorks matches all MathWorker donations, as well as a portion of non-MathWorker donations. This program brings out the generosity of our peers, and those Wednesday breakfast tables were always crowded with supporters making their pledges.
Complementing these staff-driven initiatives, MathWorks has a volunteer program, which gives all MathWorkers one paid day off a year to volunteer for any organization they want. Sometimes people volunteer for a program on their own, but often teams or groups organize volunteer events and make a fun outing out of it. A friend of mine regularly organized a trail cleanup event on the rail trail in our town, and I did that a few times.
Loading the van with supplies for a relay in New Hampshire.
Growing Our Impact
In 2017, I discovered that teamwork and charity go together like chocolate and peanut butter. A group of runners and I figured that if a lot of people would donate if one of us participated in an “A-Thon,” even more people would donate to a group of us doing one together. We put together a relay team and ran a 24-hour relay as a fundraiser and quickly raised over $19K for our charity. We were hooked. Since then, we’ve run about a dozen relays and raised almost $400K combined, almost half of that coming from the MathWorks match.
Although our goals with these staff-driven activities have always been to have fun for charity, our connections improve our work life as we have broader relationships with peers we may not have ever met in our traditional work experience.
As we got involved in organizations through fundraising, we also started organizing our annual volunteer days at those same organizations, deepening our relationships both with each other and with our charity partners.
MathWorkers from across the company come together to participate in relays.
A Friendly Rivalry
In January 2023, a glitch in the feed for our quarterly meeting simulcast led to some friendly teasing between our two Natick campuses: the historic Apple Hill headquarters, and the shiny new Lakeside offices. We decided to settle this rivalry on the ice and managed to put together a Lakeside versus Apple Hill hockey game. Anything worth doing is worth making a fundraiser, so we partnered with the Social Mission team to do a food drive and fundraiser for our local food pantry, raising over $5,500.
Lakeside may have won the inaugural game, but both teams are looking forward to a rematch.
Even MathWorkers who don’t play hockey got in on the action, putting on their Apple Hill Blue or Lakeside White and coming down to the rink with their cowbells in hand to cheer on their teams. Some enthusiastic fans even bought MathWorks hockey jerseys to show their campus pride.
Making Connections
Volunteering and charity work provides benefits beyond the organizations we support. Part of my role at MathWorks is as a design reviewer, so I often find myself interacting with teams across the company helping them refine their products. These conversations are always aided by the fact that there’s usually someone in the room who I have run or been on the ice with; we can solve problems more quickly because we already know each other.
Although our goals with these staff-driven activities have always been to have fun for charity, our connections improve our work life as we have broader relationships with peers we may not have ever met in our traditional work experience.
As the company continues to grow, making these personal connections is even more important—they help us keep the feel of a smaller company and provide an opportunity to make an even bigger impact on our community.
