Company Team Spotlight: nCino

Love Extra Life? Love supporting kids? Did you know that you can take these two passions to work with you, even if your company isn’t gaming specific? Learn more about how nCino’s employees rally around the cause to help kids through their annual gaming event.

Q: Tell us about nCino.
nCino is the worldwide leader in cloud banking, partnered with over 1,800 financial service providers globally. Our single platform product transforms financial institutions through innovation, reputation, and speed. We help financial institutions serve corporate, commercial, small business, treasury, consumer, and mortgage customers with efficiency.

Q: So, you aren’t a “gaming” company, and you started an Extra Life team. How did you make that connection?
While we’re not a gaming company, we are a technology company, and many of our employees enjoy gaming outside of work. Upon discovering the Extra Life program in 2017, our employees decided to bring their hobby to work and share their love for gaming while making a difference at our local children’s hospital.

Here at nCino, we have six core values and encourage our employees to “Live the Six” every day. These values include Have Fun, Make Someone’s Day, Bring Your A-Game, Do the Right Thing, Respect Each Other, and Be a Winner. nCino’s Extra Life team is the perfect encapsulation of these values, touching on every value in the Six. Since joining the program in 2017, nCino employees have raised over $70,000 for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

Q: What does your company team do to fundraise for Extra Life?
Employee participation is the one of the biggest fundraisers for our team, with the two biggest avenues being t-shirts sales and raffles. Our design team creates a new t-shirt every year that we sell for donations, and our employees love showing off their t-shirt collections and demonstrating their long-time commitment to Extra Life. Raffles are certainly a popular driver of donations, and this year’s prizes included a gaming laptop, a Meta Quest 3, a 3D-printer, and more! Our long-time sponsors, including Brittany Allen Real Estate Group, Battle House ILM, and Cape Fear Games all contributed to our raffle and helped expand our efforts beyond the nCino community.

Q: What advice do you have for someone working at another company, wondering if they should start an Extra Life team?
Extra Life can be anything you want it to be, and our best advice is to just start! Get together with like-minded co-workers, hang out for a weekend, and don’t worry about the money you’re raising-just know that you’re making a child’s life better by simply having fun. Once you can visualize and share that impact, you’ll have passionate participants ready to get involved and grow your team.

The first year nCino participated in the program, our employees organized a weekend at the office where everyone brought their own consoles and computers to simply game together. What started as a small event brought in nearly $1,000 its first year and became an annual fundraiser.

Q: What is the value of an in-person event for your company team? How do you fundraise?
Hosting in-person events adds a tangible element to fundraising, where employees can see who and what they’re raising money for. The most significant fundraiser is our annual Extra Life Game Day, where employees bring their friends and family to participate in a weekend- long gaming event. Game Day includes ping pong tournaments, lightsaber duels, poker, board games, and much more. The event raised over $12,000 in 2023 and $9,000 so far in 2024.

Elise Ironmonger, the Director of Programs at James & Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital, has attended our events since 2022 to speak about the specialized care their hospital provides. Our donations fund critical, life-saving treatments and healthcare, as well as innovative research and medical equipment at the hospital. Fostering a strong relationship with the hospital shows our employees the direct impact of their donations and fundraising efforts. In 2024, Ironmonger presented us with the Partners in Hope Sponsor Plaque for Extra Life, recognizing nCino as the largest contributor to Maynard Children’s Hospital through the Extra Life program for the second year running.

Q: How has your employer supported your team?
nVolve, nCino’s employee-led volunteer organization, helps employees pursue the volunteer opportunities they’re passionate about. As our team continues to increase our impact and donations every year, we’ve been provided a budget to help with our Game Day event. This assistance has helped us expand the scope of Extra Life every year.

Extra Life 2024 runs through the end of the year, and nCino’s team goal is to raise $14,000. Check out nCino’s team page today!