How Our Culture Made Us Stronger: 1.5 Years Later (Digital NEST)
Written by: Jacob Martinez
CEO of Digital NEST
“COVID is picking up – we should pay attention to it,” I remember saying to board members in a meeting back in March 2020. Two days later, we made the call to shut down for a couple of weeks and see how the virus would play out. Little did we, or anyone know at the time that a global pandemic was unfolding and we’d be forced to stay home for over a year. As society reopens, I’ve been reflecting on how we’re emerging from COVID better than we
were pre-pandemic.
We doubled down. We focused on our founding principle of abundance, and the belief that our members, employees, local businesses, teachers and neighbors deserve the best.
Here’s what we did and what we learned:
We responded quickly to community needs.
“Whatever the community needs, do it. We could run out of funds, but we’ll go down with our heads high knowing we did everything we could to help our neighbors,” I told staff.
Teachers needed content for classes, clinics needed COVID-safety materials, undocumented neighbors needed resources, artists needed help, and small businesses did too.
We built a bridge.