At Emma, we think that doing well as a company also means doing good. And so we try to do our part, chipping in for causes we care about. Here are a few:

Funding education one classroom at a time.

The idea behind DonorsChoose.org is simple: Teachers post projects that fall outside of their typical classroom budget, and donors can choose (hence the name) to fund all or a part of it. Emma staffers do that each month, picking a handful of projects around the country. Best of all, the kids write back to say thanks, resulting in lots of adorable cards, notes and pictures. Since we started working with DonorsChoose.org in March 2008, we’ve helped more than 16,000 students in 37 states.

In the fall of 2011, we also launched a new giving program that funds classroom projects in honor of our new customers -- $5 for each new account, to be exact. With more than 400 companies, non-profits and agencies joining us every single month, that’s more than $20,000 a year going straight into computer labs, libraries and art supply closets across the country. Check out projects we've funded here, and see how you can help DonorsChoose.org.

Giving away 25 Emma accounts every year.

Starting in 2004, the annual Emma 25 initiative awards free Emma service to small, deserving non-profits that our customers nominate. From the list of heartfelt nominees, we encourage our customers (and their friends) to vote for their favorites. Then, we select 25 accounts and award each with a free Emma account and service for as long as they find it useful. There are now Emma 25 honorees doing great work all over the world, and we plan to continue adding to their ranks every single year. In fact, this year, we tacked on an *additional* 25 accounts for charitable groups in cities Emma calls home — Nashville, Portland, Denver and Austin.

You can see a list of this year's Emma 25 honorees here.

Helping our agency partners give back, too.

Many marketing, design and consulting firms use the Emma Agency platform to offer stylish email marketing services to their clients (with an interface that features the agency’s own stylish branding). More importantly, we set up every agency with a free account that can be used for whatever deserving charity they choose. We call it our "Good Works" account, and it lets our agency partners share in the spirit of Emma 25 and give a little back themselves. Think of it as Emma 26. Or maybe not. Either way, it’s all good.

Providing loans to small businesses through Kiva.

Kiva connects small business owners and entrepreneurs in developing countries with people interested in lending a helping hand. So each month, a revolving group of Emma staffers peruses the Kiva site and decides how to distribute Emma’s monthly contribution.

But here’s the twist: rather than simply donating the money, we’re lending it to them. The loans tend to be quite small — a shop owner needs $100 for more supplies, say — so a little money really does go a long way. Here’s the other twist: nearly all of the money loaned gets paid back in full. So as the Kiva fund grows each month, we’ll be helping more and more entrepreneurs around the world.

You can check out some of the folks we've helped recently here.

Voting for trees, and planting them, too.

In the spring of 2007, we decided to plant some trees. After all, trees are tall and leafy and quite good at providing shade. And we like them. So we launched a quirky Arbor Day campaign called, quite simply, Vote for Trees. We asked pretty much everyone we know to vote YES for trees, because why wouldn't they, and for each vote — up to 5,000 — we planted a tree.

To continue the leafy good times, we began a tree-planting project in 2009 that included planting five trees for each new customer. In the end, that effort brought more than 53,000 trees into the world. That's a forest, people. To learn more about our partners in that campaign, Plant-It 2020, go here.

Supporting the things our staffers care about.

We also look for ways to support the organizations and events our staffers are involved in, by staffing a toy drive for needy families, and scaring the beheyhey out of kids at a community center’s Halloween carnival, and sponsoring events on the environment, sustainability and the like. As a small — but growing — company of roughly 100 staffers, you can bet this part of our community work will only grow over time.

So there you have it — a few ways Emma gives a little back. If you have any follow-up thoughts on anything you've read here, by all means drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.