Project Description

We successfully hosted a dodgeball tournament to raise funds for the American Cancer Society. Our dodgeball tournament “Dodging Cancer” was hosted at the Sullivan Athletic Center on DePaul’s campus in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago. There were eight teams, and each team had five players, competing in a bracket-style elimination format. Teams paid an entry fee to participate, and fans were also able to contribute to donating by paying a smaller fee to watch the games. We also had an option where you can pay to play but didn’t have a team and a team would be formed from participants signing up that way. Tickets could be purchased on the Eventbrite page we created and on there we also added a link to our ACS fundraising page where if people couldn’t attend but still wanted to donate, they were able to do so.

Description of the charity

Founded in 1913 in New York City, The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to cancer research, education, patient support, and advocacy. They provide resources for individuals diagnosed with cancer and work towards policy changes to prevent and treat the disease. ACS have contributed to the work that has resulted in a 33% drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States. That drop equates to 3.8 million fewer cancer deaths between 1991 and 2023.

Analysis of project success

Our team set out a goal to raise $2,850 this would be our best-case scenario if we had full participation between players and spectators. We also had a $300 prize for first place, $200 prize for second place and $100 prize for third place, hoping this would attract more participants.

• Participant entry fees ($20 per player, 80 players) = $1,600
• Spectator fees ($5 per person, 50 people) = $250
• Donations & Sponsorships = $1,000

With the expenses we accrued throughout the project and only 8 teams participating, we came up short of our goal but was still able to raise $1,050 for ACS.

Lessons learned

• Unexpected Expenses: Once we secured a venue, there was more than just being able to host a dodgeball tournament. Venue staff communicated that we must have security on hand which was going to be an extra cost.
• Communication: We were able to execute hosting the dodgeball tournament through multiple communication channels. We had weekly scheduled meetings with our team on project status and any outstanding tasks that needed to be completed. We also had a group chat where constant communication occurred, and quick updates and discussions were able to happen.

Advice for future teams doing similar projects

• Venue Securing – If you’re hosting an event and need a venue, be sure to get that locked down right away and start promoting your event. We had issues being able to have optimal dates for our event (weekends) and finally locked down a weekday. In turn promoting our event started a little later in the project than we would’ve liked.
• Participation Recruitment – Be sure you’re taking the right steps on promoting your event to recruit enough participants. Almost two weeks before the event we were still struggling to get participants and only locked down half of the participants we would’ve liked hurting our donations we would’ve received from full max participation.

Photos