Full Episode with Amy here or on your favorite podcast player:
I had so much fun talking to Amy Wendel, Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility of LogMeIn on the podcast!
Amy thought she was going to be a museum curator (also so cool!) and even went to school for it at Harvard. She ended up taking a major career turn and started a nonprofit.
It’s been a timely conversation as LogMeIn is at the forefront of video conferencing with their GoToMeeting product. LogMeIn has been extremely busy during the Coronavirus pandemic. They’ve given away thousands of remote work kits to nonprofits, schools, and hospitals to utilize their enterprise-level remote work tools. During the crisis, they’ve also matched employee donations to Direct Relief and set up Doers for Dollars, with different volunteer opportunities from home. They’ve given back to the Santa Barbara Food Bank, the Boston Foundation, and St Francis House via gift cards for their workers, among others.
How Amy’s Role Began
Amy has been with the company for 6 years and in this role for 2 years. Her company was acquired by LogMeIn in 2013 and that’s how her journey there started. She was in operations and then marketing. The LogMeIn team heard about her nonprofit in Tanzania and invited her to be a part of the charitable committee at the company. Inspired by what they were doing, she wanted to lead the charge and take it to the next level. Salesforce and their philanthropy model were hugely inspirational to Amy as she started taking on more responsibility.
Amy ran the committee with a colleague on the side while she was in Marketing and LogMeIn kept growing. So she met up with Bill Wagner–the CEO–for coffee and he recognized that this couldn’t be a fraction of her work, it had to be full time and he asked her to take it on.
He recognized that employees, customers, and investors wanted a more robust program: progression of a grassroots program into a full-fledge CSR program.
The team decided to name the program: Mission Possible – “We make things possible!” Amy’s colleague Jocelyn came up with this unexpected, joyful name for their program.
The Mission Possible focus areas:
- Education and youth programs
- Critical human need — responding to disasters, crises, hunger relief
- Sustainability
Pitch + Prototype STEM Competition
LogMeIn holds an annual STEM-in initiative — with their partner Building Impact. It’s a signature skills-based program, hosting pitch and prototype competitions for 160 kids across 5 cities: Boston, Santa Barbara, Utah, Bangalore, and Budapest. The kids worked in small groups alongside employee volunteers to prototype healthy-living apps. There were “Shark Tank”-style presentations and the company voted on Slack for the winner. LogMeIn donated $5,000 to the organization of the Winner’s choice– which was a Girls Who Code program for Santa Barabara.
Employee Voting for Grants
For Earth Day, LogMeIn has the company vote via emojis on Slack to help decide where to give their grants for that day. It’s been a hugely popular and easy way to get their employees involved.
Service Trip to Guatemala
LogMeIn also ran a service trip recently. They brought a group of 20 global employees to Panajachel, Guatemala. They chose it because it’s near and dear to their Guatemalan office team and the organization they worked with has been an org they have supported for years.
Mission Possible Global Committee
There are over 50 LogMeIn employees on their Mission Possible committee and they are their CSR ambassadors. A few from each city volunteer for this role and organize local volunteer opportunities for each office location.
Amy’s Nonprofit Involvement
Amy founded and runs a nonprofit called Project MEMA which supports two schools in Tanzania. (I mean how does she have time?!) Be sure to check it out here: http://www.projectmema.org/
Amy is also on the Corporate Advisory Council at Cradles to Crayons and is an advisor for Project Alianza. Both incredible organizations we love at Millie as well!
So grateful to Amy for joining and all the great work she does!! 
