We decided to do a virtual and in-person fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House. We raised money through virtual donations and a 50/50 raffle. Our in-person event was a Harry Potter Trivia night at Replay Lincoln Park on March 5th from 7-9PM. We marketed through our school and work connections as well as worked with the Replay venue to market to the public.
Ronald McDonald House (RMH) programs and services help alleviate financial burdens for families along their child’s healthcare journey. In 2025, RMH helped families save $678 million in lodging and meal expenses. RMH fosters inclusion, belonging, and cultural safety. RMH has 655+ total programs for families and are spread across 60+ countries and regions. We ended up working with the RMH Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana local chapter to set up a fundraising link and QR code for our event.
We raised over $1,338 in total dollars through 32 donations via our fundraising link. Our minimum goal was $250 and a most likely goal of $800 – we well surpassed both. Within these numbers, we had $155 in donations from our 50/50 raffle at our event. We also had a minimum goal of 20 attendees but ended up surpassing this as well by having over 85 attendees at the trivia event. At the event, we gave an overview of Ronald McDonald House, so this also raised awareness for the charity even if not every person donated.
One of the lessons learned by our team was that it was important to give everyone roles in the beginning. We leaned into understanding what each person’s areas of expertise is, and this helped us form the responsibility matrix early on. Then, when a new task came up in the project that was related to a certain topic, this helped us easily know who to lean on to lead that portion of the project. Next, we also learned how important it was to understand the timeline and hit deadlines. One piece of a project can delay the entire thing and add huge risks or costs if it is not completed. For example, if we did not find a venue and date for the event in a timely manner, this was crucial and part of the “critical path” of our project. We knew this needed to be done on-time or early, if possible, to jump-start some of the other activities, such as marketing. Lastly, we found that one of the most important things in project management is to talk through risk mitigation plans with your team. This is something that might not seem essential at the time, but ends up being an important piece to prepare for any issues that might arise. For example, we talked through as a team how certain things like weather could only be mitigated and not avoided. Other issues like not tracking donations accurately or forgetting to take pictures could be completely avoided by putting responsibility on an individual to ensure it gets done.
Our overall advice is to form your team early on and to utilize personal connections to jumpstart your project. We used a connection with one of our team members that worked at McDonalds Corporate, which really helped us solidify our relationship to work with Ronald McDonald House (RMH). We also used our connection to DePaul and tried to find a venue close to the downtown or Lincoln Park campus that could be more willing to participate. Additionally, if doing an in-person event, start looking for a venue early, because that can be a challenge or risk to find a venue & align a date. We eased this process by brainstorming places that we knew had the space and capabilities to host happy hour, trivia or bingo and split it up reaching out to multiple places knowing that we might get a lot of nos. Lastly, pick an event that you would actually want to attend and bring friends too and have fun! I think it makes the whole process a little bit easier if you are excited to do the event and feel passionate about the cause.
