Each year during the INTA Annual Meeting, once meetings and panel sessions are over, attendees are keen to extend their busy days into the night.
Delegates spend their evenings traveling to various receptions, typically hosted by law firms at some of the swankiest venues in the city.
For the past few years, however, practitioners have also been able to use one party to make a difference for charitable causes.
Brand Action was founded in 2022 to help the people of Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. The group held its first fundraising reception at INTA’s Annual Meeting that year.
The organisation, which has expanded its efforts to other causes, such as helping the World Central Kitchen with its Haiti relief efforts, will host its annual fundraiser in San Diego this week.
The event couldn’t happen, however, without the contributions of its sponsors.
Managing IP spoke to three sponsors about how they got involved, what drew them to Brand Action, and the benefits they’ve gained from the experience.
Making an impact
Some professionals learned about the opportunity to contribute to the organisation through their relationships with Brand Action’s founding members.
Katherine Van Deusen Hely, founding member at law firm Caribbean IP in Florida, says she has worked with Brand Action founder Phil Cox for a while. Cox asked the firm if it would be willing to back the organisation.
“We were feeling a bit helpless,” she says, noting that the firm had been struggling to figure out how to help the people of Ukraine.
Hely adds that the firm has continued to sponsor since Brand Action’s first event in 2022.
“We’re a small firm and can only donate so much. But these are causes that are near and dear to our hearts. By sponsoring Brand Action, it allows the events to happen, which leads to more people donating and more sponsors coming on board and the event growing,” she says.
“We can make so much bigger of an impact than we ever could have made just donating money on our own to a charity.”
Others report similar reasons for contributing.
Tamara Rabenold, CEO of Vaudra International (which conducts investigations to help strengthen cases in IP disputes) in North Carolina, says she had known Brand Action founder member Bri Van Til, for a long time.
Though her company had undertaken other charitable initiatives before, she was looking for additional ways to make a difference.
“Brand Action had an incredible group of IP professionals. As I was looking for other ways in which we could potentially make a positive impact, it was a no-brainer,” she says.
In addition to donating money to allow the fundraiser to happen, sponsors have also worked as volunteers and promoted Brand Action events on social media.
Some had the chance to go even further.
Patrick Hely, a member at Caribbean IP in Florida, tells Managing IP that he travelled to Ukraine and helped deliver an ambulance and medical supplies to the country. Last year’s fundraiser at the INTA Annual Meeting in Atlanta raised enough funds to pay for two ambulances.
“That was an unexpected opportunity that made a deep personal impact on me. [Having that experience] helped me be a voice and ambassador for the movement and to tell people that Brand Action has a real and lasting impact beyond the INTA events.”
John Berard, CEO at Vox Populi, the registry behind the .sucks domain, says his colleague Tony Farrow also helped deliver one of the ambulances.
“We all felt very happy and gratified that Tony was willing to do that. It’s not just about contributing money or creating a conversation. But it’s also about, when you can, being on the ground.”
A community
Beyond making a humanitarian impact, sponsors have also appreciated the opportunities to get to know some of their peers.
Hely says getting involved has also helped her meet the kind of people she’d want to work with.
“These are people who want to help others. We’ve created this community of like-minded people, and the people I’ve met have just been amazing. That goes a long way in building connections and goodwill with other people.”
Sources also note that getting involved can help firms and companies build camaraderie within their organisations.
Rabenold at Vaudra International says two of her colleagues attended Brand Action’s event at INTA’s Annual Meeting in Atlanta last year with her. At the fundraiser, she also purchased shirts for her colleagues.
“Now the team is excited about it,” she says. “Brand Action is a great way to harness and tie together the holistic worldview of helping others, and with an IP hook.”
She adds that she has invited clients and others she knows to this year’s fundraising meeting.
“It shocked me at times how few people know about it. It takes a long time to get the word out,” she says.
This year’s Brand Action fundraiser will be held on Tuesday, May 20, at The Prado at Balboa Park in San Diego at 6:30 pm.
