A Year of Impact: 2021

At Nugget, we believe in playing the long game. That means our work doesn’t just impact the world of today, but the world of tomorrow and years to come. As a company that serves kids, it’s our responsibility to work towards a more just and equitable future for all, and we take that responsibility to heart — from the stances we take, to the resources and content we produce. But more than anything else, we fulfill that responsibility by striving for an intentional, thoughtful, and more human business every day. 

In 2021, we did that by continuing to extend our corporate social responsibility initiatives beyond traditional giving, with a specific focus on the needs in our own backyard of central North Carolina. At Nugget in 2021, this looked like: 

• Moving $1 million to community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to support fair financial service programming in our hometown of Durham, NC. 
• Raising our company-wide minimum wage to $20/hour (nearly 3x the NC minimum wage), doubling our paid time off for all employees, and bolstering our parental leave benefits. 
• Partnering with a local literacy support nonprofit, Book Harvest, to provide all employees with free books for the kids in their lives! 

We also collaborated with local institutions to support equity and play initiatives in our area. 

The LGBT Center of Raleigh serves and advocates for LGBTQ+ communities and we were proud to support their mission with a $10,000 donation, as well as encouraging customers to make contributions of their own. 

ImagiFAB, a STEAM-focused exhibit at Raleigh-based children’s museum Marbles, opened in September with the support of Nugget. As the exhibit’s title sponsor, we contributed $100,000 in 2021, and committed an additional $80,000 over the next two years.

On a national level, we launched our The More You Nugget program in August 2021 and were honestly blown away by the number of nominations we received! This program provides selected K-5 public school teachers with nearly-perfect Nuggets to use in their classrooms. Since the program launched, we’ve gifted dozens of nearly-perfect Nuggets to teachers across the country. We’ve also been joined by our amazing partners, Slumberkins and A Kids Company About, to donate additional resources and supplies to the superheroes amongst us (we’re talking about you, teachers!)

The year 2021 also saw the growth of one of our cornerstone philanthropic programs, Cover Club. This contest to win retired Cover Sets grew beyond our wildest dreams in 2021 to raise $279,150 for three non-profit partners: Equity Before Birth, TABLE, and El Futuro.

• The $100,000 donation to Equity Before Birth sponsored supplemental income to Black birthing people in the absence of adequate paid leave, as well as over 200 hours of doula and perinatal education classes. 
• The $79,150 donation to TABLE made it possible for TABLE to fill an additional 3,957 bags of healthy non-perishables and fresh food and will continue to provide more than 100 kids food for an entire year.
• The $100,000 raised for El Futuro will support their mental health clinic that provides culturally-aware services for Latino families in the Durham area.

And we’re closing the year out strong! This Giving Tuesday, we’re proud to support employee-nominated organizations with eight $1,250 donations, from the hyper-local Mecklenberg High School Anglers to the national organization No Kid Hungry. We encourage you to give what you can to a cause near and dear to your heart – it could be funds, it could be time, it could be intention. And if this Giving Tuesday isn’t the right time, consider the other 364 days of the year. We like to think of any day as a giving day! However you can, let’s support those around us to build a better future for the next generation.