{"id":23391,"date":"2018-10-08T17:21:44","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T21:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/?p=23391"},"modified":"2019-06-19T22:14:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T02:14:23","slug":"one-samsung-employee-raised-16k-charity-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/one-samsung-employee-raised-16k-charity-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"How One Samsung Employee Raised $16K for his Charity of Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Meet Gary Koven: Senior Sales Manager at Samsung Electronics America<\/strong> and a budding philanthropist. Last year, Koven raised over $16,000 for Quality Services for the Autism Community (QSAC)<\/a>, a not-for-profit organization that has supported people with autism and their families for over three decades. Inspired by his mother, a QSAC volunteer board member, Koven got involved with the organization six years ago. \u201cShe shared with me that QSAC had fundraising activities and I absolutely jumped on it,\u201d he said<\/strong>. When Koven joined Samsung in early 2017, he was delighted to find that the company shared his devotion to the spirit of giving.<\/p>\n

In fact, Samsung was already a supporter of QSAC. \u201cMy involvement predates working at Samsung and it\u2019s an amazing coincidence that Samsung also supports QSAC,\u201d he said<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s a great thing when the company you work for supports a charity that\u2019s so important to you.\u201d Koven said that Samsung has been hugely supportive.<\/strong> \u201cWe think it\u2019s important that we give to our community and we take our time, our effort and our money and do good things with it – to strengthen our community,\u201d he explained. Raising the money was no easy feat. So, how\u2019d he do it?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we do it is really a team effort. I work with a very good friend and together we rally the team. The team is all of our network \u2013 our friends, family and who they connect with,\u201d said Koven<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Samsung employees donate their time every year for Samsung Day of Service. Last year, many joined Gary Koven at QSAC.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Still, the difficulty of fundraising is not lost on him. Koven admits that last minute donation cancellations and forgotten pledges are inevitable, yet he and his team persevered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe continue to reach out over and over and over again. People will tell you, \u2018Yes, I\u2019m going to make a donation,\u2019 but it takes multiple efforts to finally get them to take the time,\u201d he explained<\/strong>. \u201cThe more people you have reaching out to raise money, the more successful it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is why, he emphasizes, the importance of word-of-mouth and personal encouragement from friends, coworkers and family is the key to successful fundraising for important causes. It\u2019s also one of the reasons he chooses to volunteer at QSAC\u2019s school in the Bronx for Samsung\u2019s Day of Service<\/a> every year when the company closes its operations for a day across U.S. offices to get out in the community and give back. \u201cThrough Day of Service I have the opportunity to meet other Samsung employees who are also now supporting QSAC,\u201d Koven said<\/strong>. At Samsung, he says \u201cThere is a spirit of giving among my colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gary Koven poses at the bowl-a-thon he held, which raised over $16,000 for Quality Services for the Autism Community.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The $16,000 Koven and his team, including other Samsung employees, helped raise will support QSAC’s programs for children and adults with autism. The funds will have a significant impact on special initiatives, namely a new specialized preschool in the Bronx, due to open in spring 2019.<\/p>\n

Koven and QSAC are already preparing for next year\u2019s Bowl-A-Thon and looks forward to Samsung\u2019s ongoing support. \u201cI\u2019m incredibly thrilled to be part of an organization that has a day of service as part of its culture, as well as matching donations to charities,\u201d he explained<\/b>. \u201cSamsung is a generous company that cares about the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Gary Koven: Senior Sales Manager at Samsung Electronics America and a budding philanthropist. Last year, Koven raised over $16,000 for Quality Services for the Autism Community (QSAC), a not-for-profit organization that has supported people with autism and their families for over three decades. Inspired by his mother, a QSAC volunteer board member, Koven got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":23396,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17565,29719],"tags":[134,806,135,287],"blue-badge":[],"class_list":["post-23391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate-communities","category-corporate","tag-charity","tag-day-of-service","tag-philanthropy","tag-samsung-gives"],"acf":{"turn_off_retargeting":false},"fimg_mobile_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/14104350\/20171013_124731_resized.jpg","fimg_url":"https:\/\/img.us.news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/14104350\/20171013_124731_resized.jpg","primary_category":{"term_id":17565,"name":"Communities","slug":"corporate-communities","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":17565,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":29719,"count":143,"filter":"raw","term_link":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/category\/corporate\/corporate-communities\/","term_path":"corporate\/corporate-communities"},"badge":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23391"},{"taxonomy":"blue-badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.samsung.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blue-badge?post=23391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}