Blog
Coffee Break
Insights, stories, and thoughts that you can enjoy in under five minutes.
Wake Up Wired: All Things Social Media in 2020 with the Experts
Recently 18 Coffees held an exciting Wake Up Wired, our morning breakfast series, featuring social media leads from major brands to discuss how they’re navigating the once-in-a-generation crisis that is 2020 and COVID-19.
Writing Postcards for Democracy with Sister District
What can you do about the news besides late night doom-scrolling or raging on Twitter? If you’re like me, you’ve been asking this a lot in 2020. This summer, Community Partner Lauren Long gave us one concrete answer: write postcards!
As Volunteer Leader of Sister District Greater Chicago, Lauren is uniquely insightful about local races, and helped host a Postcard Party for our community to help us take action for races that matter. The interactive party was set up so that all attendees had postcard kits ready to be personalized and written before jumping on to a Zoom call together to learn more about candidates in key state legislative races, vent about the year, and put our rusty penmanship skills to good use.
18 Coffees at the Drive-In
On Friday, August 7, we brought together our Chicago Community Partners for a pop-up drive-in movie. It was a chance for everyone to take a moment to step outside their quarantines, see people in real life (from a distance), share a meal, and enjoy a movie together.
Change as a Core Competency
We aren’t prepared for the kinds of multi-layered transformations we’re going through right now.
Let’s start with us personally. We’re being asked to change on multiple levels: to switch up our personal behavior in response to a pandemic (wear masks, avoid activities we normally enjoy), while reconciling the negative roles we may have played in a perpetuating racism. (And that’s only in the last couple of months.) Our social context is collapsing in on itself, as we ingest and respond to massive amounts of data in practically real time.
We got a glow up.
At long last, our website got a little refresh. For those of you who remember, there’s no more dancing dots or chat bots, but we were pretty sure you wouldn’t miss them. We’re excited to give you, our Community Partners (aka CPs), your very own space. Access this CP-exclusive portal whenever you want and check out upcoming events, support causes, and stay involved.
While things may look different around here, some things remain unchanged.
Why Community?
As we launch a newly refreshed Community Partnership program, complete with new benefits and programming for our partners, it’s a great time to take a step back and answer a question that has been at the core of 18 Coffees since we founded the company: Why community?
Leading Through Uncertainty
As industries, businesses, and mindsets shift to recenter their proverbial gravity, I can’t help but lose myself in the possibility of what this change will bring. Must bring.
Restructuring Perspective: Adjusting to The New Normal, Remote Work, and Beyond
Over the past couple of months, we’ve collectively lost quite a bit. We’ve lost concerts, sports, birthday celebrations and weddings. Mani-pedis and haircuts, places of worship -- in all their various forms and locations, and places of community.
Restructuring After Job Loss
It has been a tough time for all of us as of late, but especially for those that have suffered the pain of loss. Loss of loved ones. Loss of access to others and resources. Loss of livelihoods.
In the past eight weeks, a total of almost 39 million Americans have filed for unemployment. Even for those that have found temporary relief in working from home, it is just that -- temporary.