We are incredibly proud to announce that Nebo has been nominated for the 2015 iMedia Greater Good Award. This award is particularly special to us, because it honors agencies committed to causes and nonprofits. Over our 11 year history, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to support causes near and dear to our hearts. It’s a crucial part of our business today, and a practice engrained in our very roots.

We created Nebo, a human-centered digital agency, as a reaction against the marketing industry’s deepest flaws. We decided to bring humanity back to a dehumanized industry. We saw an environment where employees were viewed as commodities, agencies viewed their clients as ROI calculations, contracts were misaligned, outsourcing was the norm and everything was driven by acquisition and profit. We knew there was a better way.

Nebo was built around taking a human-centered approach. We treat our clients, employees and vendors the way they’d want to be treated and view our culture as a competitive advantage. Today, Nebo has 70 employees and has experienced 25–40 percent growth over the last 11 years of existence. We even had to move into a new workspace with two times the square footage in order to accommodate our growth.

While these numbers are certainly a point of pride, our favorite number is zero, as in the number of employees laid off in the history of the company. Marketing firms typically follow the “hire and fire” approach, staffing up when they sign big clients and laying off when they lose them. That model runs counter to everything we stand for. Instead, emphasis is put on amazing work, and the parameters for getting that done are left up to the employees.

We work with companies of all sizes, from Fortune 500s to emerging brands. In the past year, we have garnered both local and national recognition from industry organizations like the Web Marketing Association, the Webby Awards, the American Marketing Association’s AMY Awards, PR News’ Agency Elite and Platinum PR Awards, Ragan’s PR Daily Awards and many more.

Nebo has also been named an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company in the United States for the past five years and we have received over 100 awards for our work. Some of our proudest achievements include recognition for our community efforts. We received awards for our Choose ATL campaign that include: 2015 WebAwards’ Best Regional Website, 2015 PR Daily’s Best PR on a Shoestring Campaign and 2015 PR News’ CSR Awards Pro Bono Campaign. Also, we have received recognition from the Communicator Awards, Horizon Interactive, PR Daily and PR News for our work with the BeltLine project, winning the 2015 AMY’s Best Brand Awareness award.

While doing great work and being an industry thought leader is important to Nebo, what we truly value is the opportunity to help change our community and hopefully the world. Some corporations participate in charity work as a means of publicity. However, putting people first is at the very core of this agency’s philosophy. That’s why in just the past year alone, we have donated more than $1 million in money and discounted work.

We also created our own brand of venture capitalism—more accurately described as an anti-VC—called Nebo Ignite. It provides startups with resources to help bring their ideas to life without sacrificing their share of the profits. The whole Nebo team earns sweat equity in the project and potentially reaps the financial rewards of working on the next great thing.

In the past two years, we proudly collaborated with Atlanta’s Year of the Boulevard program, Operation P.E.A.C.E. and launched pro bono efforts like the Choose ATL, Eames House 250 and Build the BeltLine campaigns. Nebo particularly cares about animal welfare, and we’ve applied our talents to giving voices to this voiceless community. We co-launched both the Rescue Pledge, a campaign to fight puppy mills and misconceptions about shelter animals, and the Change Your Chicken Challenge, a movement urging people to make more humane poultry purchasing decisions. We also take part in Amazon Smile, sending a portion of each purchase to PAWS Atlanta, a local pet adoption center.

Nebo’s President, Adam Harrell, has taken it upon himself to give back to the Atlanta and tech communities whenever possible. He currently serves as the Interim Executive Director for Startup Atlanta, on the board of directors for the Technology Association of Georgia and on the board of directors for the Atlanta Ad Club. In his free time he teaches design courses at General Assembly and Creative Circus. His book "Creative Direction In A Digital World" is currently in editorial production and will be released in April 2016. He also helps run an entrepreneurial mentoring program, Atlanta’s Year of the Boulevard, for kids living in the underserved communities of town. He was honored in February for this work and was presented keys to the city of Atlanta by Kwanza Hall.

Some of our proudest moments over the last year resulted from the following projects:

(Image source—www.aspca.org)

Change Your Chicken Challenge - We wanted to create a platform that would educate the public about the horrors of factory farming and convince them to make more humane poultry purchasing decisions. We created The Change Your Chicken Challenge with a goal to get 50,000 people to sign a pledge promising not to purchase chicken from any vendors that sell chickens raised in factory farms with inhumane conditions. In the first two weeks, the campaign amassed 20,000 pledges.

(Image source—www.musicconnection.com)

Choose ATL –  A community-driven effort to brand Atlanta as the nation’s best place to live, work and start a company. After a successful push in 2014, Nebo launched phase 2.0 of Choose ATL, with programs including “The Ultimate Job Interview.” Chamber and partners have committed in excess of $500,000 to promote and take the campaign to the next level.

(Image source—www.southernliving.com)

Build the BeltLine - The Atlanta BeltLine is a sustainable urban growth project that, once completed, will encircle the city with a 22-mile corridor, providing 33 total miles of multi-use trails, transportation networks and public parks. Nebo partnered with the BeltLine and launched a fundraising campaign, collecting more than $35,000 within the campaign’s first two weeks.

Nebo employees are truly passionate about their work and are committed to giving back to the digital community. Nebo team members have been involved in organizations such as American Marketing Association, Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association and Atlanta Ad Club. A number of Nebo employees have also volunteered countless hours in the curation of SuperNova South, the southeast’s largest and longest-running technology conference. Our employees also donate time and money into aiding such organizations in their digital efforts.

In addition, Nebo’s team members are frequently invited to speak at industry events to share thought leadership. The team has spoken at Made in ATL Week, the Commerce Club, Creative Circus Forum, Atlanta Ad Club, SuperNova South, SouthWired, ClickZ and others. We’ve also spoken at several universities, including  University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, University of Alabama and Appalachian State.

Since 2004, we’ve kept our promise to put people first. We’ve done things our way when many said it couldn’t be done. We put people first, and we did it to change agency culture—to humanize it. Doing that means putting our money where our mouth is. It means taking big risks. It means taking a stand against things that aren’t right. And it means, ultimately, leading the way for other agencies to follow in our footsteps.

We are incredibly proud and honored that our commitment to changing agency culture has lead to our nomination for this prestigious award. Please take time to vote for our agency at iMedia Connection.