Realtor.com brings change through charity hackathon

Realtor.com regularly holds hackathons to give product and engineering employees the chance to get together to solve problems not in the scope of their day-to-day work.

But what if the company threw open the doors to every employee, and invited them to put their brains to work for charity?

And so Hack-it-Forward was born, a combination campaign and event that our judges admired.

Realtor.com identified these goals:

• Fostering engagement. Help employees see their value on a team and that of their teammates.
• Boosting creativity. Identify problems local charities are facing that employees can help solve.
• Serving communities. Come together as a fully engaged workforce and give back to the locales it calls home.

Tactics included employee charity nominations, signage, intranet promotion, a T-shirt design contest that helped spread the word, and individual freedom to choose which project they signed up for, breaking down silos as employees worked across departments.

Results? For starters, 100% participation and engagement of a 2,000-person workforce. Together, participants made 1,100 blankets for Project Linus and assembled 200 education kits. In total, employees served 13 charities, making progress against homelessness, enabling education for disadvantaged youth, placing pets in homes, supporting veterans, empowering individuals with special needs, and bringing joy to critically ill children.