Project
Our team planned a volunteer event, and an online fundraiser for Feed My Starving Children charity located in Schaumburg, IL. Our project held the volunteer event on Saturday, November 3rd, 2018 with a goal of recruiting 20 total volunteers. We set a fundraiser monetary goal at $500. We wanted to spread awareness through donations for those that could not volunteer their time; we also wanted volunteers in hopes that they could continue to volunteer on their own once they saw how much donating their time impacted the charity, and helped feed the starving children around the world.
Charity
Founded in 1987, Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) is a Christian non-profit that provides nutritionally complete meals specifically formulated for malnourished children. Their mission is to feed God’s starving children who are hungry in body and spirit. Their process is simple, which is raising donations to acquire meal ingredients, and recruiting volunteers to hand-pack the meals. Meals are donated to FMSC food partners around the world, where kids are fed and lives are saved!
Analysis of Success
Goals | Actual Results |
Raise $500 in online donations | $700 total of 23 donors |
Recruit 20 volunteers for the event | 20 showed up to actual event |
Raise awareness : Reach 500 people | Emailed: 75 people
Text: To close friends and family: 61 people Volunteer event 20 people Total: 165 |
Project cost: $60 for 4 group T-shirts. We didn’t incur additional costs because the charity provided fundraiser site and our volunteers paid for their own transportation.
Overall we were able to raise $700 in online donations, and we had 20 volunteers show up on our event day. Our volunteers packed 6,981 meals that will feed 19 children for a year. We were able to spread awareness through social media by reaching out a platform of over 2000 people; however, there was no way of properly tracking all the views, and analyzing the full extent of our impact. Therefore, we didn’t include social media in our actual results. We utilized our own social media platforms, as well as, communicated to friends and colleagues via email and text. We personally called or told our friends and family about our event in person, and asked them to spread the word. As a team we felt that we achieved our goals and successfully spread awareness.
Lessons Learned
There were two lessons we learned from this project; the importance of effective communication and delegation of tasks. Communications via text and in class meetings were not sufficient enough for us to manage our project effectively. We found that scheduling meetings outside of class time, as well as, conference calls at least once a week were more productive for us. Delegation of task was another lesson we learned. Had we utilized the work breakdown structure and assigned tasks properly at the very beginning, we would have most likely raised more funds.
Advice
Communicating on a regular basis to track progress and meeting outside of class is important to ensure the project is executed in timely manner. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from professional and personal networks. Our networks helped us recruit additional volunteers, raise funds, and reach wider audience to spread awareness.