Supporter Spotlight – Eide Bailly

10/30/2020

2020 has been a year of change, and like so much else RDO Caters Taters has had to adapt. After spending months evaluating options, RDO team members and leadership ultimately decided not to host an RDO Caters Taters event this year. Even though this year we won’t have any delicious “pound”-tatoes piled high with toppings (not to mention all the other great parts of the event), the tradition of community support at the core of RDO Caters Taters for more than 20 years remains unchanged. This fall, we are still supporting a deserving organization, Valley Senior Services, and have been honored to have past RDO Caters Taters supporters join the cause in providing support, as well. One of those longtime supporters is Eide Bailly. Eide Bailly is one of the top 25 accounting firms in the country, serving companies of all sizes and industries of many types. More than that, the company is well known as a high-quality employer, most recently being recognized as one of Prairie Business’s top 50 places to work. The company also recently launched an initiative to promote an inclusive and diverse environment for both staff and clients across the firm, building a workforce that is reflective of the communities in which they serve. Chad Flanagan, Partner in Charge of Eide Bailly’s Fargo office, has been with the company for 22 years. R.D. Offutt Company was one of the first audits he recalls conducting and several of the RDO team members he met back then are ones he continues to work with to this day. To say his and Eide Bailly’s relationship with RDO is strong is an understatement, and a memorable piece of that relationship for Chad has always been RDO Caters Taters. “As far as I can think back on my time with Eide Bailly, on that day, our workforce has always gathered and gone out to the RDO Caters Taters event to grab a potato and support the cause,” he said. “It has always been such a fun way to support the community.” Both business and community involvement have had to adapt this year, but for Eide Bailly, circumstances requiring new ideas fit right in with the company culture. “We have a long culture of innovation, and COVID-19 has been another driver of that progress,” said Cassidy Kraft, Regional Marketing Coordinator. Examples include a COVID-19 Campus Analytics solution developed by Eide Bailly’s technology consulting group to help higher education institutions understand health and risk levels on campus, as well as the integration of employee COVID-19 symptom tracking into their existing Salesforce program. That regard for innovation carries into efforts to support the community, too, and Eide Bailly has seen it just as important to get behind the causes scrapping to remain impactful today. “A lot of people are dealing with today’s challenges, and it would have been easy for individuals or organizations to just take a year off from supporting others,” Chad said. “But the wonderful thing about our community is that everyone still understands the need. There’s still a lot of creativity and effort going into these causes, and we want to continue to support those who are doing good.” --- Valley Senior Services serves thousands of seniors in our community each year, and they have felt the impact of COVID-19 in several ways – but the most pressing has been a significant increase in requests for their services. For years, the partnership and generosity of individuals and businesses has played a role in helping us raise nearly $770,000 for area non-profit organizations, and this year, there’s nothing stopping that tradition of community support. Learn more about Valley Senior Services and how you can donate to them directly.

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