Mini Bites for Orphans

The project was a combination of two individual ideas put forward by the team members. It consisted of the direct offering of cookies in the aim of collecting donations and using the collected money to sponsor our own art event for Al Sanabel Orphan children at one of Bahrain art centers. The team has made it on purpose to take advantage of its flexibility to offer the cookies in different areas of the country. That helped us more than if we would have sat on a kiosk trying to do the same.

While planning the project we ensured to set clear and SMART objectives for our project that could help us assess the success and progress of our work. The project was named successful given that we were able to meet the pre-set objectives of:

  • Collect a total donation of 700 BHD: The team was able to actually collect the sum of 1084 BHD since people were receptive to our idea. Part of the money was used to cover the cost incurred by the project and a total of 703 BHD was donated in cash to the charity organization.
  • Achieve the total of 400 likes on social media: After we finished the event we sent out a thank you message for the donors and the charity organization. Using our personal social media accounts that message was delivered to more than 16000 person and we got 644 like in return (engagement of 3.95%)
  • Organize the art event on time: In fact the art event was organized on time. Children had the chance to see the mad scientist, do the foam mosaic as well enjoy dinner and takeaway gifts.

 

Advice for future teams doing similar projects:

  • Ensure that the number of cookies offered for donation is explored at full capacity. We believe that if we took the risk of ordering more cookies we could have collected double the donations and doubled the kids joy.
  • Set a formal communication plan since effective communication is an essential key in project success.
  • Always have a backup plan (contingency plan) as you never know what might occur during the project’s life.
  • Documentation is a key. Have everything documented from the initiation till the closure of the project to ensure staying on track.
  • Due to the short notice of the invitation, not everyone will respond positively henceforth, try to broaden your targeted number of invitees.

 

Two or three lessons learned about managing projects:

  • Planning: Planning took the biggest part of the project. The event by itself needed two hours to be completed but meetings, discussions, planning; scheduling and follow up took almost two weeks of time.
  • Team management: The major part of the project manager is to ensure that people are given meaningful work. This is essential in order to keep people motivated as well to ensure fairness among team members. In addition the project manager should always listen to his team members ideas. This is essential especially in big teams, it might sound time consuming, but it can only add value to the project and encourage people to be more engaged.
  • Be ready for the unexpected: Make sure you draft the risk assessment plan as early as possible and ensure its revision before the big day. Things like kids fighting can really happen and risk your project if you are not ready to handle them.

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Shall you also want to donate to Al Sanabel Orphanage please go to www.alsanabel-bh.org

6 thoughts on “Mini Bites for Orphans

  1. Definitely any idea can always been made better and this is the key to understand as you see your project evolving. There is always a thin line between stopping or adopting that newly proposed idea. Even when objectives need to be met, it is always tempting, especially for engaged team members, to want more to be done. Excellence is then not a target to be met but an aspiration that should drive every project. It has been a great opportunity not only to learn, experience and interact in the different phases of the project but also to be able to make a small positive social impact. Our only hope is that, as the money looses its value over time, the kids participating in this event will always thrive to be project managers themselves and those who contributed, donated or knew about the event will always be ready to take ACTION to keep the roll of change going.

  2. Your team project seems so well-rounded to me. I really like that you were able to combine ideas from different team members to create a project that accomplished a well balanced set of goals. The combination of donations, increased awareness and the experience of the art show for the children really is a broad list of accomplishments. I only wonder how much the social media “likes” contributed to awareness. Do the people that “like” the page get blasted with information or occasional notifications or is it a case where they agree to “like” the page without actually learning about the orphanage? Great job and thank you for sharing your experience!

  3. I enjoyed reading about the efforts to hold an art event to raise money for Al Sanabel Orphan children. I thought it was a great idea to utilize the flexibility of having different team members in different locations to raise money (via cookie sales) in order to fund the art event; this flexibility does provide an avenue for increased donations. This approach made me wonder if there were a way to further optimize the situation in which team members were located across the country. As a safeguard to cookie selling, perhaps another path would have been to have another form of donation raising that was completed by the other half of the group. My doing so, it could potentially safeguard against cookie sales in the event this approach didn’t raise enough donations.

    I also enjoyed the utilization of social media for the team’s efforts to raise awareness of the charity. I wonder if this social media approach could have been an avenue to achieve additional post-event funding in which the engaged event-goers were given the ability to further donate to the charity on the own.

  4. In planning our own fundraiser, I can take several key tips from from the Mini Bites for Orphans Fundraiser. The first take-away is that the team had a micro event before the main event. Micro events are key to establishing added funds for a better turnout of the final results. The donations/support received from the micro events ease the pressure to raise a significant amount of money/support for the final event.

    The second take-away is that the success of the project can be measured in various ways. In the case of Mini Bites for Orphans, they measured their success in terms of fiscal donations, the number of cookies provided as well as the number of ‘likes’ on their social media page. This also relieves the pressure of relying on one sole source of donations.

    This group brings up yet another good point — in planning for the successes, you must also be ready minor/major setbacks. At some point during our project, our team may experience obstacles. I am hoping to have extra funding/support that acts as a cushion in case of a setback. By having that, we will feel less pressured if we were to hit a bump in the road.

    After reading this fundraiser’s blog, I gathered that the planning aspect was the more demanding piece of their project than they had originally anticipated. I would hope to tackle the planning stage of the project from the very start. It is important to keep in mind that we must not only have deadlines, but we must meet those deadlines as well. If we take an aggressive approach to the planning, we are likely to meet our goals.

  5. >”Ensure that the number of cookies offered for donation is explored at full capacity. We believe that if we took the RISK of ordering more cookies we could have collected double the donations and doubled the kids joy.”

    I think the element of risk – and choosing to include or minimize risk in planning – has the possibility to make a great event and absolutely explosive opportunity. It’s interesting that this group analyzed their cookie order as conservative and speculated on what might have occurred if they had been open to ordering additional cookies. Doubling the total donations would be no small feat, and it certainly seems worthwhile if the donations are offset by a small increase in purchasing cookies! Alas, hindsight is 20/20.

    Ultimately, to me, the most interesting strategy here is how the risk analysis plays a part in the planning process. Certainly risk is considered when doing outdoor events or elements that involve invitations – but it should also play a part in the overall strategy of the team and should be weighed against the team’s tolerance for risk. From this team’s experience, it appears that forecasting will play a major role in how our team’s events are structures and what resources we have available to support them. We would like to maximize our reach, our net donations, and “double the joy” for kids that attend!

  6. I’m really glad that I read about your case. My group has been discussing a charity that is focused on providing food to children who need sustenance, and “bites for orphans” is very similar conceptually. I really like your multi-pronged approach to the project, as well as laying out a variety of goals. Each goal helps to support a different aspect of the project, and it speaks to an acute awareness of your team’s objectives. As my group moves forward on our own project, I’ve been concerned about how to best execute a combination of mini-events and events. I like how you set up the cookie sale drive to support the art event. I imagine it not only generated revenue but also gave a platform to showcase both your cause and your big event. Finally, I’m a big fan of tracking “likes.” After all, we don’t just want to put a fat wad of cash into an organization’s coffers. Ultimately, we want to benefit our selected causes, and raising awareness should absolutely be a desired outcome of our projects. Great work!

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