After two years of giving back virtually, last week the UM Canada team performed its fifth annual Impact Day in-person.

Every year, UM Canada employees join over 100 UM offices across 50 countries to give back to their own local communities through acts of service.

This year, the agency’s goal was to clean up David Crombie Park in downtown Toronto in partnership with the St. Lawrence Market Neighbourhood Business Improvement Area. The hours spent in service unlocked an estimated $250,000 in donated media from its partners to support BIPOC-owned businesses across the country.

This is the third year that UM Canada’s Impact Day efforts have been focused on supporting BIPOC-owned businesses with media space, as well as consulting services to help them optimize their media spend.

In 2020, the team recognized that while many small businesses had been hit hard, businesses owned by BIPOC had the added challenge of being under-funded and often had limited access to support. Last year, UM Canada’s worked resulted in the donation more than $100,000 worth of media. UM teams in Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary work with media partners to source space that would only be unlocked if the team met their goal of collectively walking, running or hiking 270 KM over the course of their day’s work. UM’s final kilometer total was 735 KM.