"We have the most generous employees on the face of the earth," Josh Houser, president of the APX Alarm Family Foundation and vice president of service and inside sales, APX Alarm Security Solutions Inc, Provo, Utah, said to me in a phone interview. He has a strong argument as APX Alarm just gave away $260,000 during its APX Gives Back Project — and every single dollar of the $260,000 was an employee contribution. Any story of generosity in the industry is exciting to report on, but one that centers on the generosity of employees is 10 times more exciting.
"At APX Alarm, we want to be about protecting families, and making a difference. More importantly, we don't want to be words, we want to be the action through the service we do and the money we give. Our employees proved that ten-fold this year and as an organization we couldn't be prouder. Their actions demonstrate how deeply the desire to give back is ingrained in our organization," Houser said.
APX Gives Back (www.apxgivesback.com) exists to implement and accomplish the vision of the APX Family Foundation to restore hope for families impacted by need. This year APX Alarm took the money raised through employee contributions and made a decision to spread it out across the United States and Canada.
"This year we wanted to do something different and really spread out the money across America and Canada. By dividing the contest into regions, we opened up the chance for a great non-profit in each region to receive help," Houser said.
The company asked its employees and customers to nominate non-profits they thought deserved the money. Overall, 260 non-profit organizations qualified. From there, APX Alarm put the non-profits up on facebook for voting. After one round of voting, the top 15 non-profits with the most votes were qualified for one final round of voting to determine the winners. Over 350,000 votes cast during both rounds, and APX Alarm saw its followers on facebook increase to more than 47,000 in a fantastic display of passion and participation for giving. The grand prize winner received $100,000, and the five regional winners received $30,000 each. AXP Alarm has a video further explaining the competition up on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPzLVcA9M4M&feature=related
The winners were:
Grand Prize Winner: Utah Prader-Willi Syndrome Association
Pacific Runner Up: Prader-Willi California Foundation
Mountain Runner Up: Heart 2 Home Foundation
Central Runner Up: Tapestries of Life
Eastern Runner Up: CHERUBS
Canada Runner Up: Alberta Association for Community Living
Go to http://blog.apxalarm.com/2010/apx-final-vote-totals/ for more information on each organization and all the non-profits in the competition.
Finally, last week, APX Alarm took 20 non-winning organizations that qualified with a minimum of 2,000 votes and drew a winner to receive $10,000. Click here for a video of the drawing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNTkuythSf4.
Seven non-profits walked away winners, with vital funding to continue serving their communities, but the industry also walked away a winner — as APX Alarm employees showed just how deeply generous the alarm industry can be.