About: Community

Anvil believes in karma and supporting the local community. As such, it is active on a variety of levels: providing pro bono services for local charity organizations, hosting an annual fundraiser event, encouraging individual employee volunteerism and is a proud sponsor of a local networking group designed to lower Oregon’s unemployment rate while enhancing the quality of work and professional relationships. Anvil was recently recognized for it's commitment to the community by The Portland Business Journal as a finalist for the First Annual Corporate Philanthropy Awards. Below is a brief summary of Anvil's current community outreach activities.

Pro Bono Clients

Each year, the Anvil team decides which charity it would like to provide pro bono search engine marketing services to for a 12 month period. These non–profit organizations are close to Anvil’s heart and benefit from the additional online visibility. If your organization would be interested in being considered as a future pro bono client, please contact us.

American Red Cross – Oregon Trail Chapter
The American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization, led by volunteers, that provides relief to victims of disaster and helps people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies. Local Red Cross volunteers respond to residential fires and other disasters an average of every 32 hours.

Community Warehouse
Community Warehouse collects and distributes household items to families in need.  Clients include women escaping domestic violence, individuals and families who have been homeless, elderly persons on limited incomes, people with mental and physical disabilities, refugee families from all over the world, youth and adults recovering from substance abuse, and the working poor.

Loaves & Fishes Centers: The Meals-on-Wheels People, 2005
Loaves & Fishes Centers is a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization that provides hot, nutritious meals to seniors 60 years and older. Hot noon meals are delivered by volunteers each weekday to homebound seniors. Loaves & Fishes Centers also serves a noon lunch to more active seniors at 15 meal centers throughout the Portland metro area.

Raphael House: Take Care, 2004
Take Care is a project of Raphael House of Portland, a non–profit organization founded in 1977. Its mission is to provide a foundation of hope for women and children fleeing domestic violence. Take Care began in 1999 as a 32-page resource guide for adults about domestic violence and quickly grew to Raphael House's largest community education effort.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon and Southwest Washington (RMHC) provides a "home away from home" for families and their seriously ill or injured children who have traveled far to receive treatment at Portland hospitals, and supports children's immunization and dental programs.

Charity Fundraiser Events

Anvil is a big supporter of local non-profit organizations, and often participates in local charity fundraiser events. That alone is not enough, however, so the Anvil team decided to do something about it: create its own event.

Anvil’s Get SMART Gala
In 2003, Anvil decided to proactively support their favorite charity by creating an annual fundraiser event: The Get SMART Gala. The festivities include an auction, food and music, all designed to raise awareness, volunteers and funding for SMART (Start Making A Reader Today). SMART is Oregon’s leading nonprofit early literacy program, serving kindergartners through third graders at risk of low literacy and its associated negative outcomes. SMART’s vision is simple yet profound – to transform our children’s future through reading.

Internet Strategy Forum
The Internet Strategy Forum is a nonprofit professional association and peer–networking group for management with primary responsibility for driving Internet strategy and implementation from within medium to large organizations. Anvil is providing search engine optimization services to boost awareness, membership and attendance to their annual Executive Summit.

LAF-OFF
LAF–OFF is a charity fundraiser event for The Campaign for Equal Justice, which provides legal aid to needy individuals. The event is a comedy competition featuring local lawyers and celebrity judges. Anvil helped promote their Web site to generate ticket sales, which resulted in a search engine optimization case study.

Volunteerism

From day one, Anvil has been a proponent of each employee being able to support a charity of their own choosing. As such, Anvil created Employee Volunteer Day, where the entire team is encouraged (if not required) to take a day off from work to support a local non–profit of their choice. In addition, Anvil employees are encouraged to become actively involved in local professional trade associations. Below is just a sampling of Anvil’s current involvement.

American Marketing Association: Web Site and Programs Committees
Junior League of Portland: Web Site Marketing Manager
Loaves & Fishes Centers: The Meals–on–Wheels People: Marketing Committee Member
Portland Advertising Federation : Board Member and Programs Committee Chair
SEMpdx: Search engine marketers of Portland non-profit professional trade organization
SMART: Marketing Committee Member and Reading Volunteers

Education

Not only does Anvil have a vested interest in our children’s future, but the adults as well. Anvil’s founder, Kent Lewis, has been an Adjunct Professor at Portland State University since 2000, teaching a variety of subjects, ranging from online market research to Business–to–Business Marketing. Currently, Lewis instructs a course in the Multimedia Professional Program: Developing and Implementing an E–Marketing Strategy. In addition, the Anvil team regularly speaks at industry events, both locally and nationally, about topics like search engine marketing, e–marketing and viral marketing. Visit the Events section to find out where Anvil will be next.

Networking and Employment Opportunities

Shortly after founding Anvil, Kent Lewis decided he knew too many smart people that didn't know each other, but would benefit from being introduced. In the fall of 2001, Lewis hosted the first official pdxMindShare at Kell's Irish Pub, where 10 friends and professional peers were introduced to each other. The monthly networking event was a hit and became a regular fixture at local establishments every third Wednesday at 5:30. Today, pdxMindShare events are held at Masu in downtown Portland. Since the initial email invitation to 20 individuals in 2001, over 2,200 have signed up to be notified of upcoming events, and of any new and interesting job opportunities in the Portland area each week. If you are looking to better your network or find the ideal job, pdxMindShare may be the place for you. Not surprisingly, pdxMindShare is also the best place to look for job openings at Anvil.