Leaps & Bounds & Triumph (& COVID-19)

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What do you do when your company requires gatherings to thrive? What happens when the clients you serve are particularly vulnerable during a Pandemic?

You shift gears FAST, and grow your content by LEAPS & BOUNDS. It was a Wednesday when Triumph Cancer Foundation was holding a strategy meeting on how to best protect cancer survivors while enrolled in their programs (considering the news that San Francisco, and now Sacramento had confirmed cases of COVID-19). Triumph Fitness curates Survivors into small groups of less than 10, but the classes are held at gyms where hundreds of people can exercise. Several options were discussed.

From strategy meeting, “socially distanced,” to Zoom and video recorded by instructor cell phones while “Sheltered In Place”.

I suggested we put in a contingency plan (Plan C, D, E) to create media individually, and in concert to avoid service interruption in Triumph’s signature program, Triumph Fitness. As we closed the meeting, we got the news: Sacramento was now a “Shelter-In-Place” County. Within minutes we had gone from discussion of “using private yoga studios” or “developing a professional video roll out of courses”, to a “worst case scenario,” and “let’s go to Plan C”.

Luckily, I had already been delivering content for Triumph for over 2.5 years, knew the staff well, and could see their potential. But deliver new programming with no pre-production, no precedent, no training the staff on content creation, and no idea of what the future held? You would be nuts to think someone could execute a turn-around in 1 week.

Coach Aaron records a video on his lesson plan, before compressing it and sending it across and inundated internet.

“Team Triumph” did just that. The first video rolled out was primitive and emotional, but so VERY authentic to the new situation into which we were thrown. Within 10 days, we were building a pipeline as a team and investigating non-profit pricing on Zoom, a platform that could deliver classes in real time where Triumph’s Coaches could actually see their clients as a group–preserving the sense of gathering and community.

Coach Anthea started in the kitchen, then moved it outside to the pool area.

At the time of this writing, Triumph now has several lesson plans on video, published to their clients through a private portal on their site. They have had several online Zoom classes , and continue to receive praise from their clients for shifting gears so fast.

Coach Eddie created a “virtual” gym.

Because of Digital Media, cell phones, Social Media, and that “can do” attitude of a uniquely qualified team, CM Media was able to deliver a new way forward for cancer survivors in the Sacramento Metro Area. Cancer survivors are often left alone to recover from cancer treatments; immune systems compromised; isolated; depressed; left with bodies they may not recognize anymore. Triumph Fitness is the ONLY program of it’s kind in the Sacramento Region. No Survivor should have to recover from cancer alone.

Coach Maria had limited space, but a big heart!

To learn more about Triumph Cancer Foundation’s needs during COVID-19, please visit triumphfound.org and donate on the Big Day of Giving, May 7th.

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