One such tribe in the works now is Financial Peace University, a twelve-week course in personal finance and debt management. Designed to help participants eliminate debt and save money, FPU teaches through guided video lesson plans designed to facilitate discussion. Led by Bazaarvoice team members who have graduated the program, participants share their techniques and experiences, helping each other develop a new way of looking at money.

These skills translate to better productivity – studies have shown that personal finance is the number one reason for individual stress in the workplace. As such, Bazaarvoice allows employees to use part of their $1,000 sponsored education fund to cover the cost of the course.

Other tribes have included beginning photography lessons, public speaking training, improv comedy classes, and weekly wakeboarding lessons on Lake Travis. The Bazaarvoice Speaker Series, a brainchild of our philanthropy awareness tribe, has brought in several speakers from community-serving organizations like the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the V Foundation for Cancer Research.

Tribes contribute to the openness, passion and teamwork among our employees that are so characteristic of our corporate culture – a culture that helped us win Austin Business Journal’s Best Place to Work 2009. And we’re hiring!

This blog post was guest-written by Sherrie Nguyen, Bazaarvoice Community Manager.

When someone asks me what gets me most excited about working at Bazaarvoice, I have to talk about all the passion that I’ve found within this company. We have an amazing culture that fosters innovation and initiative. This message was reinforced when Brett asked us to read Tribes by Seth Godin and then utilize the principles we learned to take action.

One of our team members, Tony Capasso, decided to start a Tribe to raise our awareness of philanthropy. He started the Bazaarvoice Speaker Series and has brought in amazing speakers such as Doug Ulman, CEO of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Most recently we had the privilege of hearing Nick Valvano, CEO of The V Foundation for Cancer Research, share his experiences in continuing his brother’s fight to battle cancer through research.

Nick showed us what differentiates The V Foundation amongst other organizations – the focus on showing people how they run their business and what they do with the donations to make it more personal for donors. This business model has proven great results: they have raised $80 million since 1994 and have 1100+ volunteers. However, my biggest take-away from his speech is that these results would not be possible without supporters. WE can truly make a difference. After hearing Nick mention a program called Show Your Spirit, an event encouraging supporters to engage in the cause, I was inspired. Shawn Gaide, another Bazaarvoice team member, and I decided to team up and start our own Tribe.

Show Your Spirit truly promotes Jim Valvano’s contagious motto: “Don’t Give Up…Don’t Ever Give Up!”. Each year at the start of March Madness, the V Foundation encourages companies, organizations, and schools to form teams to help raise funds for cancer research. Last year this campaign raised $300,000, and we want to help them surpass that goal.

In true Bazaarvoice style and Tribe fashion, we decided to execute! On Friday, March 20, Bazaarvoice participated in Show Your Spirit. People came to work sporting their favorite NCAA team gear and were encouraged to donate $5 to cancer research. We engaged the entire Austin office, UK team, and all of our partners as well.

We raised $410 in our Austin office and had a great time kicking off March Madness.

It was great to see everyone support a wonderful cause and know we are making a difference. The best part is seeing that, in a culture of openness and teamwork, Bazaarvoice employees are quick to offer support. This is the essence of our Tribe.

What strikes me most about this list is that the companies ahead of us have hundreds or thousands of employees – we only had 88 at that time we filled out the survey.  And while our overall contribution doesn’t come near what the larger companies gave, it still shows that even small companies can make an impact.

While we certainly don’t donate time and money in order to make it on a list (this is about nourishing our company’s soul, not getting “recognized”), this is an important reflection of our culture.  Each month, the Bazaarvoice Foundation Team meets to determine which activities to pursue, based on input from the whole company.  In 2007, when were named to this list, we had less than 1/4th of the employees we have now, and we were really just getting started with our organized volunteerism and giving (I had been giving since the inception of our company, but not in an organized manner).

2008 marked the first full year in which the Bazaarvoice Foundation fully organized to deploy interested Bazaarvoicers to donate and volunteer, and the results were amazing.  My previous Bazaarvoice Foundation 2008 in Numbers post covered all we accomplished, and then the Bazaarvoice sales team and others funded the Grace Family Vineyard Foundation at the end of the year.

We are still going strong: 2009 kicks off with a blood drive for The Blood and Tissue Center of Central Texas on January 20th.

Why is this important to our culture?  We freely allow employees to volunteer on company time, and these activities allow us to bond and have fun outside our four walls.  As with almost everything we do, we listen and respond to the voices and opinions of our employees – anyone can suggest a cause or activity.  Our recent discussion of Seth Godin’s Tribes led several employees to elevate their own causes, to great results.  A new employee, Ashley Falvey, is organizing a Bazaarvoice Cycling Team to support charity rides, and Tony Capasso is bringing CEOs from local charity groups to the office so we can all learn more about why they are so passionate about their charity’s cause.   The first of these is Doug Ulman, the CEO of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and we are very proud that he is kicking it off.

I challenge all Austin – and technology – firms, large and small, to ask your employees how they would like to give back this year, then give them the flexibility and tools to do it.  There is no better way to nourish your company’s soul.  I hear about how well many small companies are doing in Austin, and that’s music to my ears.  Now it is time for you to give back to your local community – they need you in these tough economic times.

So, it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to Snowflake (Snow) Rosen, our Sales Director who leads our Bazaarvoice Foundation (in the spirit of Tribes, by Seth Godin, you don't have to be a manager at Bazaarvoice to lead an important initiative or group).  I believe this is Snow's first post to our blog, even though we have been significantly involved in charity ever since we started the company.

Written by Snowflake Rosen:

At Bazaarvoice, we give thanks for our collective abundance by weaving service and charity into our corporate culture.  We created the Bazaarvoice Foundation to build structure around this core value of service by providing leadership and organization of at least two service events per quarter.  Team members across the company propose the events we sponsor; the activities reflect both our individual and company passions.

In 2008, as a company, we made an impact to service organizations and charities locally and nationally.

Together, we contributed to 10 events for 10 different local and national organizations, including:

• 1 rack of professional clothing for The Salvation Army's Employment Services and Employment Counseling

• 21 "Wishpacks" for Make a Wish Foundation of Central and South Texas to accompany Wishkids who have been granted a trip

• 40 towels for Emancipet to help stray dogs and cats recovering from spay and neuter surgery

• 60 teddy bears for Center for Child Protection to reduce the trauma for children during the investigation and prosecution of child abuse cases

• 40 trees planted, exterior walls painted and an irrigation system installed at Govalle Elementary in East Austin through Entrepreneurs Foundation Fall Service Day

• 1 pro bono Bazaarvoice Stories implementation for the Jimmy V Foundation

• 100+ ceramic mugs for "Greening the Bazaarvoice kitchen"- staff members cleaned out their cabinets and brought in 100 ceramic mugs to end our use of disposal coffee cups

• 125 – Average bowling score of 8th Annual Austin Cup Bazaarvoice bowling team – we are bad bowlers with good hearts

• 421 person hours donated in total

• Financial contributions to Jimmy V Foundation, Grace Family Foundation, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation LIVESTRONG Challenge

It is an honor to chair the Bazaarvoice Foundation, and I am consistently touched and impressed by our efforts.

Blessings in 2009,
Snowflake Rosen

Click here to view the embedded video.