Press Release

Jolkona and Waggener Edstrom Worldwide Celebrate a Successful Good Deeds Giving Campaign

October 31, 2011 - Seattle, WA - Jolkona, a Seattle-based nonprofit that uses technology to facilitate low-cost, high-impact giving to global philanthropic causes, just finished Good Deeds, a successful giving campaign with multiservice communications agency Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (WE). As a corporate sponsor, WE matched up to $5,000 (U.S.) of individual donors' contributions to global development projects showcased on the Jolkona website (www.jolkona.org). The campaign launched on October 10, 2011 and the matching fund was met on October 22, 2011.

"The philosophy that all giving matters is the spirit of Jolkona’s mission," said Angela Cherry, community relations senior specialist, WE Corporate Citizenship. "Jolkona recognizes that people don’t have to be wealthy or have an unlimited amount of time to volunteer to make an impact; even small doses of passion turned to action make a difference. Or, as we like to think about it, the impact is YOU."

Overall, the Good Deeds campaign supported 41 different grassroots development projects in 15 different countries around the world. A few examples of the projects that the Good Deeds campaign supported include tuition for six students to attend night class in the tsunami-affected area of Japan, six acres of rainforest conserved in Tanzania, one-week worth of meals for 160 children in Uganda, four jobs created in India, two entrepreneurs received the opportunity to showcase their businesses in the U.S., and two girls saved from honor killing in Iraq.

This is the second giving campaign that Jolkona has launched with WE, the first being the ‘MatchED’ giving campaign (http://www.jolkona.org/matched), which raised $10,000 for Jolkona by matching contributions to education-related projects on its website. In addition, this summer WE facilitated an ideation session with Jolkona leaders, and this fall WE is organizing volunteering opportunities for agency employees with Seattle-based nonprofit organizations that Jolkona supports.

"We're really proud of our partnership with Waggener Edstrom and for its dedication and support to further our mission of getting more and more people involved in philanthropy," said Nadia Khawaja Mahmud, co-founder and CEO of Jolkona. "Not only has WE been generous to sponsor our Good Deeds campaign that resulted in $10,000 overall impact and bringing new donors to Jolkona, but also by allowing WE employees to donate their time during an ideation session for Jolkona. It’s great to work with a company that has a core value of giving back to the community and leveraging its success to inspire others to help."

Visit http://www.jolkona.org/good-deeds.html to view the campaign’s overall impact or read this blog post summarizing the results: http://www.jolkona.org/blog/good-deeds-campaign-is-fully-funded/

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About Jolkona

Jolkona is a start-up tech non-profit that is cultivating the next generation of philanthropists by showing that anyone can make a difference today. Through their micro-giving web platform, Jolkona.org, individuals can find low cost, high impact projects that they’re passionate about, and receive tangible proofs of impact for every donation. For more information, visit www.jolkona.org/.

Contact: Laura Kimball, (425) 359-2454, laura@jolkona.org

About Waggener Edstrom Worldwide

Waggener Edstrom Worldwide (WE) is a global, integrated communications agency. For more than 25 years, the independently owned firm has developed strategic communications programs for innovative and world-changing clients, working to influence markets, inspire people and improve lives. PRWeek US named WE an agency to watch in its Editors' Choice 2010: Who to Watch list and presented its PR Innovation of the Year 2010 award to WE for its twendz™ application. The Holmes Report also named WE its 2010 Technology Agency of the Decade. In 2009, WE was awarded Best PR Agency in North America by International Business Awards and Top Place to Work in PR by PR News. The agency has nearly 800 employees in 16 offices around the world, and its 23 Global Alliance partners expand the agency’s reach to 30 additional international markets. WE has seven global practices: Analyst Relations, Consumer Marketing, Corporate Communications, Healthcare, Public Affairs, Technology and WE Social Innovation, along with its WE Studio D® digital strategies group. To learn more, visit http://www.WaggenerEdstrom.com.

The Waggener Edstrom® mark, the Innovation Communications® mark, the twendz^TM mark, the WE Studio D® mark and other marks used herein are registered or unregistered trademarks of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the registered or unregistered trademarks of their respective owners. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

Contact: Angela Cherry, (425) 638-7161, angelac@waggeneredstrom.com