In this article
One Tuesday morning in late May, before we'd sent a single message, over a hundred Customer.io teammates received a Slack notification: they'd been added to a new channel called #donut-day-2026, with no context, no explanation, and nothing in it but a lot of question marks.
Within minutes, the channel erupted. "Ohhhhh what is this?" someone typed. "Every minute this goes without context, our expectations get bigger," added another. One teammate announced he was standing outside his house waiting for donut delivery. Someone else declared that they were going to buy a bagel just to be a rebel. GIFs flew. The kickoff post wasn't even live yet but the hype had already built itself.
The idea: Simple, sweet, intentional
International Doughnut Day falls on June 5th, and our People team wanted to mark it with something more than a fun-fact Slack message. We wanted real connection, the kind that's hard to foster in a distributed, global team and worth pursuing anyway.
The plan came together simply: use Donut, the Slack integration already in our tech stack, to pair every participant with a teammate they likely wouldn't cross paths with in their day-to-day. Those pairings were scheduled for the week of June 5th, and everyone was told they could expense a doughnut through their Ami Connect budget, our internal benefit built for exactly these kinds of culture moments.
The setup was remarkably light-lift. Donut handled the matching and scheduling automatically, a channel was created, teammates were added, and all we had to do was write the kickoff message and get out of the way.
A week of doughnuts, across the globe
The channel became a rolling feed of treats from around the world. Leo in Vancouver picked up a box from Goldie's Donuts. Camille in Boise found Smash Donuts stuffed with ice cream. Gaby said, "Nothing better than a crispy fritter!!" Claire in Glasgow raved about her local spot. John in Las Vegas shared a photo with his new match, Glen, over Pink Box Doughnuts. Ilja in Sydney discovered a hidden gem called "OMG! Decadent Donuts". Across time zones and continents, 108 teammates showed up.
108 teammates, 54 conversations, one culture
When the week wrapped, the numbers told the story: 54 pairings made, 108 teammates connected, many meeting for the first time.
That's not a small thing for a global company. Customer.io operates across multiple time zones, with teammates spread from North America to Europe to Australia, and the nature of distributed work means people can go months without ever meeting someone they collaborate with regularly. These intentional moments don't happen by accident. They take a small act of effort, a channel created, a tool put to use, a benefit activated, and then people do the rest.
Why it matters
At Customer.io, we believe culture is something you build on purpose. Building it at scale across a global team requires the same thoughtfulness we bring to our product.
That means using the tools we already have. Donut has been part of our Slack ecosystem for a while, and the Ami Connect benefit exists precisely for moments like this. What we did was connect the dots and create a moment people looked forward to.
The chaos in the channel before we even posted the announcement was a signal. Give people a reason to engage with each other, and they will.
Belonging doesn't require a big budget or a complicated program. Sometimes all it takes is a good reason to reach out, and a team that's already inclined to show up for each other.
If you're a doughnut lover or just love the idea of joining a remote team with intentional culture, check out our open roles.
