When we sat down to plan our company #GivingTuesday festivities this year, we had several priorities:

1. Celebrate the causes that our customers champion all year long

2. Give our staff the chance to celebrate #GivingTuesday at work

3. Put our company values of giving as a daily habit front and center

And while #GivingTuesday is the single largest annual day of giving, it’s about more than just one day. Giving Tuesday kicks off the end-of-year giving season for nonprofits around the world. We kept this in mind as we tapped into the giving spirit of our Salesforce.org Ohana to celebrate #GivingTuesday with fun ways for our employees to get involved and give back.

In partnership with Build-a-Bear, Salesforce lobbies in New York and San Francisco were transformed into #GivingTuesday bear workshops where all local employees had the chance to build a stuffed animal that will be gifted to kids in need through Make-A-Wish Foundation. Employees stuffed more than 1,100 bears on Giving Tuesday, and KGO-ABC 7 stopped by to capture some of the activity.

Last year, #GivingTuesday raised more than $300 million, and we wanted to help make that number even bigger this year. Over $136,000 was requested in matching funds from Salesforce employees on #GivingTuesday alone.

A “beary” Salesforce #GivingTuesday

Salesforce.org partnered with Build a Bear and the Make-A-Wish Foundation, serving children in need, to give away bears to kids this holiday season. There was no question that this organization was the right partner for the job — considering the fact that last year Make-A-Wish granted more than 15,400 wishes throughout the U.S. and its territories. (Related: did you know that the organization grants a wish every 34 minutes, on average?)

Here’s how our partnership took shape:

As thousands of Salesforce employees arrived for work at offices in San Francisco and New York, they were greeted by lobbies transformed into #GivingTuesday Build-A-Bear workshops. Salesforce staff, customers, partners, and passersby got the chance to create over a thousand stuffed animals to be distributed to children in need through a series of fantastic partner organizations in both cities.

#GivingTuesday is a day to celebrate giving — in this case, stuffed bears and time — and can go beyond money. Volunteering is also a fun way to do a corporate team-building activity, to get to know your colleagues, and to give back. Why not add in volunteering to your next team event?

This lobby bear building situation may seem like an unusual way to greet thousands of staff people on their way to work, but for Salesforce, this is normal. We are celebrating 3.2 million employee volunteer hours total, in fact! Although #GivingTuesday is a special day, for Salesforce, it was another day for us to celebrate our year-round commitment to making giving a daily habit.

For some behind-the-scenes images from yesterday’s festival of giving back, check out our social media coverage (#SalesforceGivesBack). And let us know how your office celebrated #GivingTuesday too by mentioning @SalesforceOrg in your tweets and using #SalesforceGivesBack.

Keep the spirit of giving going

If you’re at a nonprofit and want to get one-time donors (or volunteers) to give monthly, we recommend reading this detailed research on recurring giving from NextAfter.

If you’re at a company and also want to engage employees more effectively, check out Salesforce.org Philanthropy Cloud and research of what Fortune 1000 company employees want and trends in what both consumers and employees want from brands.

Lastly, we’re also looking forward to Computer Science Education Week, which starts Monday, December 3. More on that coming soon! Twitter hashtags to follow are: #CSforAll and #hourofcode

This article was originally published on salesforce.org