CreateAthon applications being accepted through July 15

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Applications for Riggs Partners’ 22nd annual CreateAthon event benefitting Midlands- and Upstate-area nonprofits are currently being accepted.

The annual event, to be held Oct. 17-18, is a 24-hour marathon during which marketing professionals provide services to nonprofits for free.

Applications are available at https://www.riggspartners.com/ and are due by July 15. Selected nonprofits will be notified in late August.

“No important community issue can be solved without effective communications, and this truth puts communications professionals in a unique position to impact social change,” Teresa Coles, president of Riggs Partners, said in a news release. “We’ve been privileged to see just how impactful the work we’ve done through CreateAthon has been in our community, and it’s what inspires us every year to pull yet another all-nighter for good.”

CreateAthon began in 1998 as a local community service program by Riggs Partners, a creative marketing firm that develops communication strategies for socially conscious companies and nonprofits. It is now a national 501(c) 3 organization that has partnered with than 100 marketing and communications agencies, universities, professional organizations and corporate marketing teams, according to the release.

CreateAthon has served more than 1,300 nonprofits in the U.S. Canada and Puerto Rico, including 200-plus in South Carolina, and delivered marketing projects valued at more than $24 million.  

“Our organization was in need of rebranding, but we didn’t have the funding to move forward with a marketing firm,” Kimberly Tissout, executive director of Able South Carolina and 2012 CreateAthon participant, said. “With the creative brilliance behind CreateAthon, we were able to successfully rebrand to not only stand out from other organizations but to better tell our story. Our name and overall image now match our work of empowering independence for people with disabilities while also creating systems of change.”