END OF YEAR REPORTS 2021
End of Year Reports for HNP Ontario 2021
Each link will jump to the selected teams report:
HNP Ontario Events Team Report
HNP Ontario Marketing Team Report
HNP Ontario Finance Team Report
HNP Ontario Human Resources Team Report
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HNP Ontario Events Team Report
Purpose:
The purpose of HNP’s Events team is to actualize events and programs to implement solutions to issues that surround environmental awareness and action. We provide hands-on opportunities for young voices to make an impact on the future of our planet. The events team will strive to raise awareness and educate our community on prevalent environmental topics.
Team Members:
Current Team:
Events Lead Director: Iris Cui
Events Directors: Cindy Zhu and Danya Shafi.
Events coordinators: Michela Ye and Aymaan Abid
Previous Team:
Events Lead Director: Srija Das
Events Directors: Iris Cui and Gabrielle Tava
Events coordinators: Daryna Tkach and Michela Ye
Hiring:
We are going to be hiring 2-3 event coordinators in January.
Our Tasks:
Throughout the year of 2021, Human Nature Projects Ontario’s Events team was to execute the Eco-Webinar series, brainstorm potential collaborations with other non-profit organizations, as well as carry out the Carbon Footprint Challenge.
Our first project for the year was the Eco-Webinar Series. This event invited guest speakers from various aspects of environmental work to speak on their individual journeys and projects. We took this as an opportunity to engage our community through these webinars to learn more about different parts of environmental work. During the planning of this series we had three members of the team, Srija Das, Gabrielle Tava and Iris Cui. These 3 members contacted various potential guest speakers from different universities, organizations, companies and more through email. During this event we hired two new members, Daryna Tkach and Michela Ye. They aided in contacting more guest speakers. We were able to secure guest speakers from various universities and organizations, which includes University of Toronto, Credit Valley Conservation, Crew and many more. After securing our guest speakers, we hosted our webinar series every weekend starting from May 9th to June 27th. We hosted a total of 7 webinars with a total participation of around 175 participants.
Lastly, we were able to plan and execute the Carbon Footprint Challenge. This event promotes environmental consciousness among youth by reducing their own carbon footprints. The challenge is centred around reducing your carbon footprint where participants are encouraged to decrease the most amount of carbon footprint they can for a week. The purpose of this challenge was to learn about different ways to be more eco-friendly. Through this challenge, participants learned the environmental impacts behind their daily choices and how to live more sustainably. The competition was held from November 14th to November 26th. The top three participants who reduced their carbon footprint the most received prizes.
To start off this project in July and September, we contacted multiple environmentally friendly companies in hopes that they would sponsor us for potential prizes. We secured one prize from the contacts and also had left over prizes from the Finance team for our fundraisers. These prizes were to create a prize list for our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.
In preparation for the challenge, the events team created a booklet to guide the participants The Carbon Footprint Challenge Booklet includes facts, information about carbon footprint, and the significance behind reducing our carbon footprints. We had three separate teams that included the Events team members as well as other exec members from different teams to design and create the booklet. Section A was led by Cindy and Danya and included researching facts and statistics for the event. Section B, individuals assigned did their work respectively and their primary task was to design the booklet. Section C included submission details and general information about the event. The booklet was reviewed and supervised by Srija and Iris who finalized the design as well as the content of the booklet. In addition, one of our previous members, Daryna, made our very own Carbon Footprint Calculator that participants used to calculate their carbon footprints at the beginning and end of the challenge to view how much of their carbon footprint they were able to reduce. Furthermore, we were able to aid the Marketing team with extensive and thorough research about carbon footprint and innovative ideas to reduce it. To further help our participants navigate the Carbon Footprint Calculator, we also filmed and edited a tutorial video.
We created a designated drive for all the participants to input their information. The Drive included every participants’ individual folders which included a Carbon Footprint Score folder where they put their beginning and final scores and a Proofs folder where they could include all their proofs to verify their score. The drive also included the Carbon Footprint Challenge Booklet, a Welcome and Instructions document and finally a Question and Answers document. To keep track of everything we created a spreadsheet with all the participants' information and their final calculated scores.
We are now in the works of finalizing the winners and giving them their prizes.
Future Goals:
The Events team is currently working on a collaboration event with YCAT to host a webinar to amplify indigenous voices. This event is set to launch in February, this is a rough estimate as much of the details are to be discussed. We are looking to work with 5 other organizations, which are currently being contacted. Both HNP and YCAT have already started research on guest speakers to present in the webinar.
For Earth day, the events team wants to hold a mini event in April. This plan is not finalized as it depends on when the YCAT collaboration event will be scheduled. Regardless, since we want to commemorate Earth day, if a mini event does not occur we will try to include a post on HNP’s Instagram regarding Earth Day.
The Events team is looking into in-person events in the upcoming year. One being a tree planting event which we want to do as our final event of the year 2021-2022. This event is to be held in June. Much planning will have to go into this, including contacting the city, getting a budget to be able to provide snacks, gloves, shovels, masks and other necessary equipment.
Purpose:
The purpose of HNP’s marketing team is to raise awareness for and educate our audience on prevalent environmental topics. This is done through the creation of informative posts, the expansion of our social media and the promotion of our events.
Team Members:
Current Team:
Directors: Emily Yu and Marina Huang
Associates: Ada Wang, Christine Qin, Tvisha Shah.
Our Tasks:
During our 2020-2021 term, Human Nature Projects Ontario’s Marketing team has worked on tasks in many areas but is mainly focused on content creating and managing social media. Majority of the time, this team makes promotional and educational posts for both our Instagram and our Facebook. In the past year, we have created promotional materials for our various events, such as the Eco-Webinar series, Funding the Future and our Carbon Footprint Challenge. We have also created posts about our team–– from inviting new members to our team in the form of ambassador and executive member hirings to introducing our team to the public through “Meet the Team” forms.
Aside from the posts regarding our events and team, we have also generated posts to promote our brand and to increase our following through a consistent posting schedule. The Marketing team has worked towards educating our followers and spreading awareness on critical environmental topics; during our Eco-Webinar series, we have educated people on various topics and created awareness. During our Carbon Footprint Challenge event, our team has made posts with ways that people can reduce their carbon footprint.
Our social media managers have reached out to various other non-profit organizations about collaborations and shoutouts to assist with our social media expansion. Through these methods, we have increased our follower count by 69% from 1,300 to 2,200 in under a year, as well as increased our event participation.
When our website developer left the team, the Marketing team continued to work on updating our website. We remade the entire website which consisted of updating the graphics as well as adding new pages for each of our events. As well, we have also created a Facebook page (different from a personal account), a Discord server for the executive team, and a TikTok for HNP Ontario. We have been updating our Facebook page regularly with the posts we create, and we are starting to incorporate our newly made TikTok account into the group of social media platforms that we manage. On Discord, we have added all our executive team members to one server, and have created text and call channels for all the teams. Marketing has fully moved over to using Discord as our form of communication, and we are in the process of trying to move the whole executive team there as well.
Lastly, the marketing team decided to work on creating a new brand graphic for HNPO. We arranged an executive team vote for all the new logo options, and we rebranded to the one with the highest vote.
Future Goals:
The marketing team is striving to be more diverse in our social media platforms and forms of media. For example, promoting our Facebook and Tiktok more often and creating Instagram Reels. Using these new platforms will cause a higher level of engagement to our brand and events. Hence giving us the opportunity to keep moving forward and gaining new members.
HNP Ontario Finance Team Report
Purpose:
The purpose of the finance team is to monitor the funds and purchases of the organization. Whether it be getting sponsors, filling out forms for grants and funding, reimbursing members, or developing the funding of the team, we monitor it all!
Team Members:
Current Team:
Finance Directors - Ridah, Eden, Theo (to depart December 2021)
Finance Associate - Likhitha
Finance Ambassadors - Fiza, Diana
Hiring
We plan to hire 1-2 more members next year which include a sponsorship associate and finance and technology associate
Our Tasks:
This year the finance department has done many projects and events in order to boost the organization's funds as well as gain exposure to new audiences. We first initiated the Funding the Future fundraiser where we would be giving people prizes in return for certain donations (ex. $5 = gift card, $10-$20 = antiseptic sanitizer bottle, etc.). What went well with the fundraiser was the sponsorships we were able to get (around 12 products in total)! Although that went well and outreach from the members posting it on their stories went well, we only got one $5 donation. For the future, we should try to have some more commonly-known prizes (things that would be of more daily use) so people are more inclined to donate. Also, we should consider grouping prizes more so it's of more value to the person donating.
We also filled out a grant for the “Rising Youth Grant” and had completed and handed in the form by the end of 2021. This grant will hopefully provide the organization with more funds for the in-person events to happen soon.
We also had one of our previous Finance associates curate an official HNPO website where all of our members, our purpose, our events, and donation link will be located. The website has allowed for easy access to all of our resources and makes our organization feel more professional.
Finally, we have also made great progress in having an official bank account for the team. By the end of 2021, we have submitted our by-laws (needed for the bank account) and will be choosing our bank provider and curate the account by late 2021/early 2022. This bank account will make tracking purchases and reimbursements easier overall.
Future Goals:
The finance team plans to complete the curation of our bank account as well as plan to apply for more grants. We will also be hosting another fundraiser and will hopefully apply some things we learned from the fundraiser this year so it has better success. Along with that, we will be managing better funding for our in-person events to happen next year and ensure that we stay within our budget and find funds when needed!
HNP Ontario Human Resources Team Report
Purpose:
The Purpose of the Human resources team is to overlook the entire executive team involved inside the organization. We are here to provide any assistance needed with team members and any other areas in the organization, through administrative work and personal one-on-ones.
Team Members:
Current Team:
HR Directors: Yukta, Brian and Jamie
Ambassador Director: Vishurdeey
Ambassador Coordinators: Sanvee and Iris Hu
Our Tasks:
Throughout the 2020-2021 term, the Human Resources department has worked on many tasks and has accomplished a lot. The Human Resources team wrote executive reference letters, conducted several successful entrance and exit interviews, and has aided in setting up weekly meeting procedures.
The Executive Reference letter is one of the responsibilities that HR is in charge of. The executive members of our team reach out to the HR directors, and request for volunteer hours letters and reference letters.The HR directors then verify the number of hours the team member has, and all the responsibilities they have conducted. In addition, we ask the school the team member attends, in order to address the school in our letter. At the end, the form is signed by Yukta. Reference letters are only available to a team member who is in good standing with HNP for over 6 months.
Meeting procedure during our weekly meetings
Every Saturday night from 8-9 pm, the entire organization has a meeting. We talk about all the work from the past week that each team member has done, and work that needs to be completed in the upcoming week. Throughout this meeting, several associates from the HR department keep track of attendance and write notes. If there is an unexcused absence, it is the responsibility of the HR department to reach out and check in with the team member.
Entrance Interviews
The shortlisted applicants are reached out for an entrance interview. This is where we get the opportunity to ask the interviewee (and vice versa) questions and get a better understanding of the applicant; and carefully analyze whether they are suitable for their desired positions.It is conducted by the HR Directors (Brian,Jaime and Yukta) and the HNP Ontario founders after the executive member applications deadlines have been past.
Exit Interviews
Exit interviews occur after an executive member has submitted their resignation with a minimum of 2 week notice.The exit interview is then planned with the HR Director and the executive member. The exit interview gives us valuable feedback in regards to future directions for us as an organization.
Future Goals:
Currently, our long-term goals are to hire more individuals in the month of January as it is the beginning of a new year, and our team is growing. We will be doing this by advertising our recruitment on the HNP Instagram page. Additionally, our primary goal is to have HNP registered as a non-profit organization by the end of December.