Ms. Kelley Gibson

Paper ROCKS-Glatfelter Paper and the YorVoice Music Showcase

Posted by Ms. Kelley Gibson, May 17, 2016 0 comments


Ms. Kelley Gibson

Founded as a United Arts Fund for York County Pennsylvania in 1999, the Cultural Alliance of York County's annual campaign supports eight partner agencies that are essential to our cultural core and funds the Creative Impact Award grants that bring arts and culture to life in York County.

In an effort to promote camaraderie/fellowship in the workplace for our local corporate contributors and deepen their involvement in the Cultural Alliance annual campaign, the Cultural Alliance created YorVoice in 2015. The event brought 10 local musical acts that varied in style and genre together for a friendly singing competition. Based on the model of the Cincinnati-based ArtsWave United Arts Fund choral competition event; “CincySings,” the Cultural Alliance recruited teams from corporate contributors, as well as local performers who wanted to participate and showcase their talents to a larger audience. We had a panel of celebrity judges rank the teams to award a first place Champion and Runner Up. We also created a People’s Choice category, which awarded the People’s Choice trophy to the team with the most votes, $1 per vote.

We had two objectives with the YorVoice event:

  • To showcase local talent. YorVoice was created to bring together many different individuals and companies and showcase the multitude of musical talent in our area.
  • To raise funds for the Cultural Alliance’s Annual Campaign. In an effort to fundraise in a unique way still aligning with our mission, YorVoice acts as both a showcase of local talent to our community while also raising funds for our annual campaign.

Though both YorVoice and CincySings are musical competitions, the similarities end there. Once we started to recruit teams in the York area, we realized that our corporate partners and local talent interested in the competition didn’t just want to sing, they wanted to play. We added in a component allowing for live bands, which opened up our talent pool. Another realization? Corporate teams didn’t want to step on the Strand Performing Arts Center stage unless they felt they had the talent to win. Luckily, one corporate contributor with talented musicians on staff stepped up early on in our recruitment to become a model: Glatfelter Paper.

Headquartered in York, Pennsylvania, Glatfelter Paper is a global manufacturer of specialty papers and engineered products, employing over 4,600 people worldwide. Though Glatfelter has always been a strong Cultural Alliance campaign contributor, there has been little engagement at the individual employee level. The management team at Glatfelter Paper saw YorVoice as a way to build employee camaraderie and share the Cultural Alliance story with their people, and was the first team to sign up for our 2015 event. They put together a group of management professionals who also happened to be accomplished musicians, and the band PAPERHEART was born.

Thanks to Glatfelter’s early adoption of the event, more corporate teams began signing up. In order to spark some friendly competition, the Cultural Alliance created online People’s Choice voting pages for each team so they could easily share with friends and colleagues through social media prior to the YorVoice event. Glatfelter Paper embraced the online voting as a way to engage their employees, and soon contributions were coming in from around the globe. Their strong online voting inspired the other teams, bringing thousands of dollars in prior to the bands even hitting the stage. Over $8,300 was raised in People’s Choice votes, and PAPERHEART was our People’s Choice winner. Overall, YorVoice contributed over $12,000 to the 2015 Cultural Alliance annual campaign, and 70% of the online People’s Choice voters were new to the organization.

Glatfelter Paper also utilized their PAPERHEART team’s appearance in YorVoice to increase employee engagement in the arts throughout their company. Over 80 Glatfelter employees made special PAPERHEART shirts and came out to root on their team in the competition. For many, it was their first introduction to the Cultural Alliance and the Strand.

“On behalf of Glatfelter PEOPLE, we had a blast with the event and the internal camaraderie it generated,” shared William T. Yanavitch, II, Senior Vice President of Human Resources & Administration. “Glatfelter had several senior leaders participate in the online donation process as well as attending the event while proudly wearing their PAPERHEART t shirts. For several, this was the first time they attended an event at the Strand. I even ran into retirees who joined in the festivities. Your concept increased the Cultural Alliance brand awareness for Glatfelter people.”

For the 2016 YorVoice competition, Glatfelter Paper realized it needed to keep PAPERHEART and the YorVoice competition fresh and new to continue to engage its employees. They added a new band member to the line-up, and members of senior management offered to personally match PAPERHEART People’s Choice votes over $2,500. For 2017, they’re looking to host employee PAPERHEART events prior to the YorVoice performance to keep their fans coming back for more.

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