Team 6 – PAWS Chicago

Project Description:

Our group chose to raise money and hold a fundraising event for PAWS Chicago, which is a no-kill animal shelter in Chicago, Illinois.  To begin our project, the team developed a comprehensive implementation plan.  The two main activities at the onset of the project were to (1) contact PAWS Chicago to get approval on the event and any support materials, and (2) identify and select a location to host the event.  Our initial inquiries to PAWS Chicago received limited response and it took over a week to complete the necessary application and approval process.  The selected event location was DIAG Bar and Grill, which is pet friendly bar that offered unlimited beer, wine, and appetizers for $40 over three hours.  We scheduled our event for Saturday, May 20th and began to prepare by getting flyers and a donation box from PAWS, setting up an online donation portal, designing an event flyer, sending out invites, and securing raffle prizes.  On the day of the event, the team showed up about an hour early to setup.  DIAG Bar and Grill had reserved about a quarter of the bar for us and we were able to position a donation table at the front of our section.  As guests arrived, we would talk to them about PAWS, sell raffle tickets, and help them secure a wristband from the bar.  The event went smoothly with $330 raised and about 30 attendees.  Additionally, online donations brought in $1,440, netting a total of $1,770 in donations for PAWS.

Charity Description:

PAWS Chicago is a national model in animal sheltering, committed to bringing an end to the killing of homeless cats and dogs.

  • Mission:
    • To build No Kill communities – starting with a No Kill Chicago – that respect and value the life of every cat and dog.
    • To end the overpopulation of homeless animals through solutions, practices and education.
    • To transform animal welfare by setting higher standards in the way animals are treated and developing a sustainable, solutions-based model.
  • Highly rated on Charity Navigator:
    • 3% of expenses spent on the program
    • 100/100 Financial and Accountability/Transparency score.

Success Measures:

  • Objective: Raise at least $500 for PAWS Chicago
    • Exceeded:  We raised $1,770 for PAWS Chicago, outperforming our target by $1,270 (+254%)
  • Host at least 40 attendees at the fundraising event
    • Did Not Meet:  We had 30 attendees due to a late cancellation, missing our target by 10 (-25%)
  • Have an Awareness table at the event with signage and pass out at least 25 flyers
    • Exceeded:  We setup an awareness table with a donation box and passed out well over 50 flyers throughout the fundraiser attendees and bar patrons

Financials:

Lessons Learned:

  • We should have started earlier:
    • We changed the charity to support (originally GFDC) because another team had selected them, which delayed our project start about a week.
    • Diag Bar and Grill did not get back to us right away with dates for the event, which limited the potential weekends to host the fundraiser.
    • Scheduling conflicts within the team also reduced the possible days for the event.
    • Other groups also held their event on May 20th, but due to the limitations listed above, this was the best date for our event.
  • Do not rely on weather:
    • Diag Bar and Grill had a nice outdoor patio, but it went unused most of the night because it was cloudy and rainy.
    • The poor weather conditions also could have resulted in invitees not attending when they would have otherwise.
  • Plan for attendee cancellations:
    • A birthday party of 12 people had committed to attending, however, a friend’s flight was delayed into the start time of our event, so the party decided to make dinner reservations instead.

Advice for Future Teams:

  • Communication is crucial:
    • Rapid responses between members is critical.
    • Do not take to long to respond to each other – it’s easy to just look at a message and say “I’ll respond later.”
  • Utilize technology:
    • Slack app (highly recommended for group based work) worked well for group communication.
    • Google Drive worked well for sharing documents and collaborating.
    • The PAWS Chicago donation link really helped drive online donations.
  • Brainstorm and form a Work Breakdown Structure:
    • Having a checklist ensures activities get done on time and in an orderly manner.
  • Start early:
    • Diag Bar and Grill and PAWS were not quick to reply to our inquiries.
    • Calling instead of emailing helped to decrease lead times.

Event Photos:

Event Flyer and Invite:

Online Donations:

Trivia Night for Association House of Chicago

PROJECT AND CHARITY SELECTED:

The charity selected for our team project was the Association House of Chicago, a nonprofit organization serving the communities of Chicago since 1899. Their services include:

  • Employment training and placement
  • Foster care support
  • Mental health programs
  • High School guidance services

The event we chose was to host was a Trivia Night with the following components that we focused on: Venue, Accommodations, and Entertainment

  • Venue: The venue selected will be the Revolution Brewery. This location is a popular location for with a great atmosphere and popular among residents of the city of Chicago. An added bonus is that the venue already has a standing relationship with our selected charity, which aided in planning and execution of this project.
  • Accommodations: Our event offered all you can eat and drink for a standard ticket price. This helped loosen up the atmosphere and ensured a good time!
  • Entertainment: Alongside a great atmosphere and drinks, this we offered attendees multiple avenues for entertainment aimed at aiding in raising funds. Those avenues included a Trivia Game with prizes for winners, Silent Auction, and a 50/50 Raffle

Primary purpose of the event was to raise awareness and funds for the charity.

PROJECT RESULTS:

Our project raised a lot of awareness for the charity. We had the charity’s staff at the even mingling with attendees and sharing some of their work for the residents of Chicago. We also played a brief video highlighting the charity’s work.

We also raised a substantial amount of funds, approximately $4,500; only $100 shy of the goal we set out for. We also had close to 50 people attending the event, making it a great success.

LESSONS LEARNED:

Some of the lessons we learned in the project are the following:

  • Plan for contingencies and focus on teamwork: Things happen, emergencies professional and personal. It’s important for the team to have sense of camaraderie. This helps in ensuring that things don’t fall through the cracks and that we are all vested in each other’s success!
  • Be nimble in your plans: We planned for around 75 people to attend, however we only sold 50 tickets. It was important for us to remain nimble in our plans, had we stuck to our original work plan, we would have fell much more short of our goals for funds to be raised. But by remaining flexible and being able to adjust project plans, we were able to still hit our targets with a smaller than expected turnout.

EVENT PICTURES:

Vincentian Hunger Fighters – Team 8

TEAM 8
VINCENTIAN HUNGER FIGHTERS


Project description

Our team chose The Greater Chicago Food Depository as the organization for the project. Our objectives consisted of spreading awareness and raising funds for this organization. Our team members also had personal interests in this assignment. The desired outcome was to gain project management experience along with enjoying the time working on the project.

The reason why we chose the GCFD was based on our personal values and available resources. We wanted to collaborate with a local organization that has a proven evidence of spreading positive impact on the community. An organization that is known for their act of kindness rather than just another big brand name.  The GCFD was a perfect fit to this description.

We worked on the assumption that the first and the best step to help the organization is to find their needs. Then we matched those needs with our available resources and identified the following events as the most suitable in contributing towards our goals:

• Volunteering at the GCFD facility
• Running a traditional food drive
• Running a virtual food drive.

These events became the core elements of our project.

 

Brief description of the charity

The Greater Chicago Food Depository is Chicago’s food bank. Their mission is to feed the poor and to end hunger in the community.

The GCFD partners with 700 agencies and programs including pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and responses for children, older adults and veterans to collectively achieve their goal. Since 1979, the Food Depository has made a daily impact on hunger across Cook County. Last year, the organization distributed 70 million pounds of food, 35% of which was fresh produce. Every day GCFD distributes the equivalent of 160,000 meals. The GCFD has been recognized as one of the leading charities in Chicago.

 

Factual analysis of success in terms of project objectives

Planned:

  • Goal of 130 likes on our Facebook Page
  • Goal of 40 donors contributing on our Virtual Food Drive
  • Goal of completing 30 Hours of volunteer work at the GCFD facility (equals 10 volunteers)
  • Goal of collecting 150 lbs. of Food

Achieved:

  • 85 likes on our Facebook Page, 661 people reached
  • 4 donors donated $130 via Virtual Food Drive
  • 24,75 hours of volunteer work (equals 9 volunteers)
  • 181 lbs. of Food obtained via actual food drives

 

Lessons learned

  • We have learnt that identifying risk possibilities and managing risks are two different things.
    Identifying risk is the first and the basic step in risk analysis.
    On the other hand, managing risk is a much more difficult and complex act. Having backup plans is a key element in any project.
  • We have learnt that maintaining a healthy balance between planning and execution is very important.

 

Advice for future teams doing similar projects

  • Do not go easy on the marketing part. Focus more on advertising and promoting your events. It is easy to set up marketing campaigns, but difficult to attract and motivate people to participate.
    So be strong in marketing and promoting your event.
  • Communication is the key. Have a regular face to face group meetings to communicate all aspects of project.
  • Have contingency plans for your events. This includes back-up plans for places as well. Do not rely on just one event. We had a good experience with dividing our project into the variety of events.
  • Don’t forget to have fun whether it’s just a group meeting or the actual event.

 

Snaps from the events

REPACK EVENT 

 

 

REPACK EVENT

 

 

REPACK EVENT

 

 

REPACK EVENT

 

 

MICRO FOOD DRIVE

 

 

TRADITIONAL FOOD DRIVE

 

 

TRADITIONAL FOOD DRIVE

 

 

FOOD DRIVE FLIER

 

 

VIRTUAL FOOD DRIVE WEBSITE

SKY HIGH NIGHT for Bridge Communities

The purpose of our project is to plan, host, and execute an event to support Bridge Communities Inc. to assist with propelling their cause. Our group had set up a trampoline night at SKY HIGH SPORTS in naperville to raise awareness for the Bridge Communities. This event would attract trampoline enthusiasts and also family and friends in residing in DuPage County for fun trampoline night. SKY HIGH has a program “bouncing for Bucks”, which donates half of the ticket prices to non profit organization of our choice.  So we held a successful trampoline night for family and friends on may

30th 5-9pm at naperville location of SKY HIGH SPORTS to raise awareness and donations for the organization.

The charity that our group has chosen for our project is a local charity that assists DuPage County, Illinois residents with giving them free temporary housing to 131 DuPage County families each year. The name of this charity is Community Bridges Inc.

The critical services Bridge Communities provides to the homeless are housing, mentoring,unemployment and other supportive assistance. This includes giving the homeless a place to stay, learn to save and budget financials, obtain employment, and guide them to live self-sufficiently in the future. The first two years that each family spends in this program, they learn to save money, learn budgeting skills, and more.

The area which they target is DuPage county which is west of Chicago. Because of this, we wanted to host an event within the area in order to reach the community which is directly affected by Bridge Communities.

The reason we chose this charity was,

  • Chicago magazine ranked Bridge among the 20 Best Charities in Chicago in 2015, for connecting more than 130 families to homes and hope each year
  • Bridge partners with dozens of local churches, community groups, and businesses to provide a comprehensive program for homeless families in DuPage County. These partnership result in awareness, donations and volunteering for the events at Bridge communities.

We started the project with the intention of creating a dodgeball tournament to drive ticket sales and fundraise for Bridge Communities. This included providing Bridge Communities a proposal which states what our event is, what are the tasks involved, who is completing the tasks, and when we are expecting these tasks to be completed.

During this process, we also had to consider where our event would take place, when the event occurs, how much time the dodgeball tournament will last, the budget of our group, the materials and equipment needed for the event, how to track team registration and revenue, and finally how to attract people to this event.

We decided to host the dodgeball tournament on May 27th, 1:00PM – 5:00PM but now we needed a location. After conducting cold calls to numerous school’s and recreational centers within the DuPage area, we had to look elsewhere because the prices and availability of the facilities were unsuitable for our capabilities. This made it easier for us because the Ray Meyer Fitness Facility in Chicago was able to accommodate our requests. In addition, the Ray Meyer Fitness Facility could provide us with dodgeball equipment such as the dodgeballs, whistles, ect.

Once we acquired the facility, we had to start marketing the event with 3 weeks left. We made a Eventbrite page so teams are able to pre-register and we could forecast whether to shorten or extend the time of the event. Because the Ray Meyer Fitness Facility was a DePaul building, it accommodates DePaul students for a rental discount. We focused our marketing efforts to attract DePaul students which included posting 52 flyers in the student dorms and pushing 78 emails to undergraduate and graduate student organizations. In addition, we posted on DePaul related groups on Facebook to drive awareness.

Unfortunately, a few days before the event, only a couple teams pre-registered. We decided to cancel the event and proceed with our contingency plan which was to partner with an indoor trampoline park called Sky High Sports.

We contacted the Regional Manager of Sky High Sports about 3-4 weeks before our planned event date of May 30th. Usually, their organization only accepted events if requests are made prior to a month before, but because we communicated our strategy to attract customers, he allowed us to host the event. Our marketing strategy was:

  • Post in high, traffic groups in Facebook which are approximately close to the Naperville area
  • Leverage Bridge Communities’ capabilities to email blast and post on their social media channels
  • Engage and persuade our peers to come to the event and bring friends and family

When we were posting on Facebook, I came across a group called “Naperville Moms Network Business, Events, & Happenings!”. It was a closed group for Napervile moms but we made contact with the administrator of the group. She was not only the admin of the group but also the leader of a community group called Naperville Moms Network. She allowed us to post in the Facebook group and she spread our event on her website and community group.

On the day of the event, we set up a table which included a banner, flyers, and a free raffle. Everyone received a free raffle ticket but if they liked and shared Bridge Communities’ group page, they would receive an additional 2 raffles to win a Patrick Kane and Addison Russell jersey as well as other coupons and gift cards from local stores.

Goal

  • Awareness
    • Increase Facebook Likes by 100 on Bridge Communities’ official Facebook page
    • Pass out 50 Bridge Communities’ informational flyers at the event
  • Fundraising
    • Raise $750 which is equivalent to 150 attendees

Results

  • Awareness
    • Increased Facebook Likes by 186 (raised from 2054 likes to 2240 likes)
      • 53 Facebook Shares of Bridge Community which reached 34,149 friends
    • Passed out 82 Bridge Communities’ informational flyers at the event
  • Fundraising
    • Raised $596
      • 123 attendees – $492
      • Donations – $104

Although 123 attendees sounds like a lot, it was a family event. For perspective, if you brought 50 people and they all have 1 child, there are essentially 100 attendees. In our event, there were people who brought 1 or 2 children as well as both parents attending.

We are very proud of the successes we’ve made despite being unable to meet our fundraising goals because of the difference we’ve made in both the homeless community and those who helped us achieve our goals.

Of the lessons learned from the project the two the immediately stand out are:

  • Establishing a risk management plan
  • Stay on schedule and establish dates for when contingency plans kick in and staying in constant communication with one another.

If it wasn’t for our risk management plan we may not have been able to pull off an event. The main take away from our risk management plan was the chances of our event having to be canceled due to venues complications or lack of turnout which in the end made us start preparing our secondary event at Skyhigh which would allow us to pivot from the Dodgeball event because the chances of having to cancel where high enough for us to have to start preparing for what would eventually be the inevitable.

This lead into our second major take away, which is establishing deliverable dates and contingency plans. Because of the risk management plan we were able to set up key dates for when deliverables had to be completed. This allowed us to coordinate appropriately as a group. We met up as a group once a week on Saturdays and had follow up calls on Tuesday evenings to make sure everyone was on task and on track to meet the due dates. Eventually we started having evening calls daily during the last week leading up to the event so we knew what the game plan was, who was arriving when, and how we would follow up with our report and presentation that was due the very same week of the event. Because of that we were never caught off guard and had an unforeseen event occur during our time together as a group.

Advice for future teams doing similar projects  Peter  from final paper & slides

It is always important for teams to always be able to come up with an alternative project in case one does not always work. It is always important to maintain group communication between the charity that the group, the customer, and the charity that we are working with. The Project Matrix is the last major requirement that will be needed in terms of responsibilities and to communicate who does what in the group. The Project Matrix success plan is explained in terms of awareness, participants, and revenue.  Controlling scope creep is important in which the project’s parameters are restrained and the project scope is classified. The goal is to produce the wanted product on time and in the budget. Some colleagues in project management from the Project Management Institute state that there are six primary reasons for project scope creep. The first one is less articulateness and greatness of knowledge about the initial specification document, permitting straightforward contact between client and team participant members, customers attempting to get more work that is cheaper for them, starting design and advancement before a comprehensive requirements analysis and cost-benefit analysis has been completed. The fifth one is in which the belief is “to do it yourself” because of less anticipation and devising. The last sixth one are badly explained initial requirements. The main reasons for using scope creep is because of a dishonest customer with a “value for free” policy, improved communication between parties, improper antecedent about what is needed to bring about the project’s goals, bad change control, an active and energetic project manager or executive sponsor, quick and durable software development primarily relying on subjective amounts. Some important challenges to be aware of finding a proper venue, finding the correct price ranges, trying to determine which events to cancel based on event awareness, and maintaining communications with charities. There are seven important lessons to maintaining scope creep:

1. It is imperative that the project perception and point of view.

2. Know the order of activities that comes first activities that are permitted by project controllers.

3. Describe the project end results and goals and make sure these are authorized by the project drivers.

4. Make the sure approved project deliverables are placed into real work requirements.

5. Describe areas of the project that are major and minor goal indicators and make a great project schedule to be finished by the project drivers.

6. Appoint resources and figure out the critical path using a project evaluation and review method chart or a work breakdown structure.

7. It is important to know that scope creep will occur. Scope creep happens when there is a bad requirements analysis, not getting users engaged early soon enough, and not knowing and being cognizant of the largeness of the project. There at times is a lack of understanding the change and control enough and gold-plating in which the practice of exceeding the scope of the project in the belief that value is being added.

 

 

 

Salsa Night for Portage Park Helping Hands

1) Brief description of the project

 

Our team set out to raise awareness and to raise money for Portage Park Helping Hands.   We saw the opportunity presented in class as a way to help a charity in our local community.  Gathering our DePaul network, local community as well as the school community we were able to make a difference in the lives of this charity.

 

2) Brief description of the charity

 

Portage Park Helping Hands (PPHH) is a nonprofit organization that is created to raise funds in order to promote and encourage academic excellence through a developed, integrated curriculum as well as extracurricular activities for the children of the Portage Park community. Promoting diverse programs to all students provides greater opportunity for children to develop skills in different areas and increase their capacity for knowledge and success academically.

 

3) Factual analysis of success in terms of project objectives

 

Our group managed to raise funds of $1250 and increase awareness of PPHH by holding two fun-filled events. The first event was held at Kiddie Kingdom, a kiddie arcade with food and drinks for both parents and children to enjoy. Kiddie Kingdom donated 15% of the proceeds that day directly to PPHH. Our second event was held at a Mexican restaurant, El Nuevo Taco Loco, which offered a salsa lesson, food, and drinks for all who participated. We learned plenty from our first event to allow for greater success in our second. The obstacles and challenges faced in both events have definitely better prepared us for marketing, managing, and assigning roles to keep our projects in tact enough to meet or exceed our goals.

To prepare for these events, our project manager, Alicia, found our strengths and assigned us roles that complied with those strengths to allow for a smooth transition into our roles in this project. We each had roles such as creating the flyer, uploading to social media, creating a budget, communicating with any vendors, etc. The role assignments and deadlines for each task enabled us to be well organized prior to our events and during the events as well. We found that assigning tasks and deadlines put us in a much better place in regards to timing and better prepared us for our second event over our first. That explanation you will see shortly.

For both of our events, we created flyers to be distributed physically and electronically via social media. The social media outlets utilized were Facebook, SimplyCircle,  CrowdRise, and EventBrite. Further, our group wanted to arrange a convenient time for people to join and want to enjoy our event. We also needed a convenient location in the city of Chicago for people to attend and enjoy this event. Coming up with an attractive price and finding our target audience were some of the additional details we had to pan out. Further, we had to contact a restaurant owner, salsa instructor, and a DJ to agree to host the event at an affordable price.

 

4) Two or three lessons learned about managing projects

 

Our first event was unsuccessful for several reasons. For one, we did not market the first event well enough to create awareness both about the event and for those to attend. We limited our marketing crowd to the Portage Park Elementary school media which included: Facebook and SimplyCircle. Further, the physical flyers we printed out were sent home to all students, in hopes that all teachers sent them home in time, and in hopes that the students provided the flyers to their parents. Because of the lack of control we had over the viewership of our marketing, and the finite targeted crowd we chose, we did not have as large of a crowd as we had anticipated. Further, each member of our team carries a different personal and work schedule, which made it difficult for some of us to communicate effectively and/or complete our own assigned tasks. Because of this, some members had to carry an extra workload to compensate for the members who were difficult to communicate with and/or could not meet some of the deadlines.

 

5) Advice for future teams doing similar projects

 

The advice that our team would like to extend is to start early.  We started almost the first week of the project and still had concerns that there was not enough time.  Working with the charities like Portage Park Helping hands requires a lot of approvals from the school board as well as the charity board of directors.

Scope creep is something that is also dangerous for projects.  At times we had many ideas that we would have liked to pursue, but we needed to stay with the original plan. The weeks during the quarter seem to go quickly and scope creep can be detrimental to your team’s success.

 

6) Photos related to the project. Examples could be event photos, website, team members, etc.

 

Team 1: Buddymazing

Brief Description of the Project

Team 1 worked with Best Buddies, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We helped the organization raise funds and awareness by hosting a bar night at Skores Sports Bar and Grill in Hardwood Heights. The team sold tickets for $50 and half of the proceeds were donated to Best Buddies. We were also able to obtain straight donations and a sponsorship from donors who were unable to attend the event. At our event, we raised additional funds by raffling in-kind donations we received from our sponsors. In addition to hosting a bar night, we also raised awareness by posting our event through our social media outlets. We worked closely with Kaitlyn Rose, Director of Development for Best Buddies Illinois. Ms. Rose provided the marketing materials for our event. She also made sure that a representative from Best Buddies was present at our event to help spread awareness to our family and friends.

  • Team Name: Buddymazing
  • Organization: Best Buddies of Illinois
  • Event: A Bar Fundraiser at Sports Bar & Grill in Hardwood Heights, IL
  • Date: Saturday, May 20, 2017
  • Time: 8 p.m. – 11 p.m.
  • Cost: $50 per person
    • Three-hour open bar with food
    • $25 – Bar Cost & $25 – Fundraising
  • Raffle Tickets:
    • $1 for one
    • $5 for six
    • $20 for a “Wingspan”

Brief Description of the Charity

Best Buddies International is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships and helps find employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

  • Best Buddies was founded in 1987
  • Works directly with people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD):
    • Down Syndrome
    • Autism
    • Fragile X Williams Syndrome
    • Cerebral Palsy
    • Traumatic Brain Injuries
  • 109,033 Total Participants in 54 Countries
  • Dedicated to ending social, physical and economic isolation for people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD)
  • Works with people ages 12 years old to adulthood
  • Teach public speaking skills by building self-esteem and confidence
  • Three Program Pillars:

Factual Analysis of Success in Terms of Project Objectives

Buddymazing Fundraising Goal: $4,325.00

Buddymazing Actual Fundraising Total: $6,525.00

Buddymazing Exceeded Its Fundraising Goal by $2,200.00

34% Over Fundraising Goal!! 

 

Total Revenue:                                                                     $7,225.00

  • McCormick Foundation Sponsorship: $5,000.00
  • Ticket Sales / Personal Donations: $2,020.00
  • Online Donations: $205.00

Total Expenses:                                                                    $700.00

  • Venue: $25 per ticket – Total Venue Expense: $575.00
    • 23 Guest Attended
    • Included 3 Hours Open Bar & Food
  • Service Gratuity – Total Gratuity Expense: $125.00
    • 1 Server

Total Other Expenses & Donation Value:                           $426.00

  • Team T-shirts for $10 each – Total: $50.00
    • 5 Team Members
    • This expense was covered by each team member individually
  • Decorations & Supplies – Total: $61.00
    • Invitation & Ticket Printing: $35.00
    • Raffle Tickets: $8.00
    • Wristbands: $10.00
    • Balloons: $8.00
    • These expenses were covered by each team member individually
  • Raffle & Give Away Donations Value – Total: $315.00
    • Hush Salon Gift Certificate: $50.00
    • Blooming Lotus Spa Gift Certificate: $65.00
    • Cite Restaurant Gift Certificate: $50.00
    • Porretta Italian Restaurant: $100.00
    • Wine Basket: $50.00

Lessons Learned About Managing Projects

  • Communication is Key for a Successful Project
  • Focus on Either Raising Funds or Awareness
  • Prioritize Your Time
  • Balance Your Work/School/Life Schedule

Advice For Future Teams Doing Similar Projects

  • Start Early
  • Prioritize Your Time / Meet Deadlines
  • Be Organized
  • Stay Focused on the Ultimate Goal
  • Be Prepared For Last Minute Changes – Prepare
  • Have a back Up Plan Ready – Plan B, C, D…
  • Respect
  • Have Fun!

Photos Related to the Project

Team Buddymazing:

Event Invitation & Ticket:

 

 

 

 

 

Venue – Skores Sports Bar and Grill:

Best Buddies Information Table:

 

Just Having Fun and Being Buddymazing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Team 5: Raise a Glass to Raise a Roof

Project Description:

Team 5 held a fundraiser for Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) of Chicago and Northwest Indiana (CNI). The fundraiser was a social event at Chicago Joe’s (located in Roscoe Village) the night of May 19th, where a split of the revenues went towards the organization and the remainder to the venue. We sold wristbands for $40 at the door.  Attendees had access to various drinks from 7pm-10pm. $20 was donated for every wristband sold. At the event, we had table tents and other materials talking about RMHC-CNI and ways to donate. In addition to the sales, we hosted a 50/50 raffle where the winner took home 50% of the total money collected and the other 50% went to RMHC-CNI. RMHC is a global organization that supports children and families by delivering programs and services in more than 63 countries and regions. We focused on the Chicago & Northwest Indiana (CNI) chapter. The mission of RMHC-CNI is to care for families of children with complex medical needs by providing comfort, compassion and a sense of community. RMHC-CNI keeps families of hospitalized children together in a ‘home away from home’. They have 5 local houses in the Chicago and Northwest Indiana area, 3 local Family Rooms, sponsor a scholarship program, and Care Mobile.

Charity Description:

RMHC is a global organization that supports children and families by delivering programs and services in more than 63 countries and regions. Our team focused on the Chicago & Northwest Indiana (CNI) chapter. Their mission is caring for families of children with complex medical needs by providing comfort, compassion and a sense of community. RMHC-CHI keeps families of hospitalized children together in a “home away from home”. They have 5 local houses in the Chicago and Northwest Indiana area, 3 local Family Rooms, sponsor a scholarship program, and Care Mobile.

Factual Analysis:

Our goal was to raise awareness and funds for RMHC-CNI. We did marketing on Facebook inviting all of our friends and family members. We also posted our event on various student organizations’ Facebook pages, so more people would get to know our charity and help us for fundraising. The larger reach, the better probability. We expected $200 in donations through our dedicated site outside of the event. The team knew not everyone would be able to come or wants to come to the event. We wanted to have a way for them to contribute outside of the event. We also planned a 50/50 raffle. Our goal was the sale of 20 raffle tickets at $5 per person for an eventual revenue of $50 after the payout to the winner. We intended to reach our minimum attendees (36 x $10 = $360) and get our minimum goal donations outside of the event ($200). In addition to the 50/50 raffle, we would reach our overall goal of $530. After the event, we received more onsite donation than online donation compared with what we expected. The final amount donated to RMHC-CNI was $566.

Lessons Learned:

  • Do your research
    • Locations
    • Alternative opportunities
  • Pick a strong team
    • You do not know it all
    • Be resourceful to be successful
  • Never rely on weather
    • Especially in Chicago

5) Advice for future teams:

  • Take control of Project Scope – When our team edited our event proposal, we wanted to ensure that what we added was necessary and helpful for the event. We tried to avoid adding irrelevant items that could miss critical deadlines.
  • Use applicable programs for communication – Our group used WhatsApp as a quick and convenient tool for group chat because it would be easier for all group members to go over 30 messages than 30 emails. We also used Google drive to share all documents and photos for our project. Our team tried Trello, which is a great project management application. However, we preferred to use WhatsApp and Google Drive. Choosing applications or programs that fit the team will be helpful for the project.
  • Set a deadline for each task – There were many small tasks in the implementation plan, so deadlines can keep us on track of the progress of all tasks. If one of us miss the deadline, our project cannot keep going without those small steps. We marked “To Do” and “Done” next to our tasks as the status so we can keep our project moving forward in a limited time.
  • Keep in agreement on a common goal – Each team member comes from different backgrounds and has different ways of doing things. We had various ideas about charities when we started the project. Rational persuasion was helpful for us while we made decisions and agreements. Alignment of all our ideas was important for us as a team.
  • Plan well on risk management – It is important for the team to have a well-planned risk management because there are many unpredictable conditions, such as weather. Our selected venue has both indoor and outdoor areas for the event. Our team anticipated raining on the day of our event, but we did not expect it to be held on the coldest day of May. Risk management plan can make the team confident and calm if an unexpected situation happens.

6) Project Photos:

Team Members:

Members of Group 5, from left to right, Alex Berestenko, Mark Bechtold, Kate Andorka, Yuting Wei, Ziyan Yin, Ivan Espinosa.

RMHC-CNI Website:

Flyer:

Event Photos:

   

TLP Happy Hour Fundraising Event

Team 2: Sarah (PM), Tazarf, Peggy, Rawand, Jen, and Steven

Description of Project:

What: Team 2 hosted a Happy Hour Fundraising Event that offered attendees unlimited drinks and pizza. We included a 50/50 raffle and a “pass-the-hat” for extra donation throughout the event.

Where: Glascotts Saloon, 2158 N. Halsted Street Chicago, IL

When: Tuesday May 16, 2017 6-8pm

Our team partnered with Team Living Programs (TLP) to raise awareness of homeless youth and the importance of building a community, hope and opportunity for youth that are homeless. We chose to host our event at Glascott’s Salon in Chicago. The venue donated 50% of all ticket sales for our event and provided the venue space at no cost, which also supported the charity. Our team and all our guests were present at the venue on Tuesday May 16, 2017 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm to support TLP and provide insight and information regarding the charity. A board member from the charity was also present at our event to provide assistance and outreach regarding TLP and to educate our guests on homeless youth in Chicago.

Flyer used to market the event

We sold tickets for wristbands at the cost of $40.00; the wristbands included unlimited alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and pizza for a period of 2 hours. We also offered a 50/50 raffle ticket sale at $5 for 1 ticket, $10 for 3 tickets and $20 for 7 tickets where the winner would receive half of the raffle money and our charity would receive half of the raffle money. The winner of the raffle decided to donate all her winnings to the charity. Our team utilized online networking sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as word of mouth and we all sent personal email blasts to family and friends regarding TLP and an invite to our event. Glascotts Salon, our venue, advertised our event at no cost by posting our event invite on their Facebook page, Instagram, and provided a Twitter blast. We also setup an online donation page via EventBrite to capture funds from people that could not attend our event but wished to make a donation to the charity.

Description of the charity

Banner used on Facebook Fundraising Page

We chose to support homeless teams via the Teen Living Program (TLP): “Teen Living Program builds community, hope and opportunity for youth who are homeless. We address their immediate needs and help them achieve independence and stable housing.” https://www.tlpchicago.org/

We chose TLP because it’s a local not-for-profit that we all believe has reputable, and important mission to end youth homelessness in Chicago and to build community, hope and opportunity for such youth. Our team also chose to partner with TLP because of existing contacts with the charity. Sarah Pinter, our Project Manager, has personally volunteered and attended various TLP charity events throughout the last few years. Sarah also has various points of contact on the charity’s board that we were able to utilize to ensure our event was successful. Sarah’s existing relationship with TLP definitely facilitated effective communication with the TLP and provided resources for our event. TLP also uses <3% of its profits towards covering overhead expenses which attracted our team to support this charity.

Factual Analysis of Success:

Fundraising

  • Goal: $2,000
  • Result: $1,200

Raise Awareness

  • Goal: 50 event attendees, event invitation circulation to over 100 people
  • Result: 20 event attendees, over 100 people invited

Challenges faced:

There were a few challenges with respect to our project:

  • The limited time period we had to plan, market and execute the event. We essentially had about 6 weeks to plan, market and execute the event. Due to our individual schedules, our team was forced to host the event in mid May 2017. Accordingly, we essentially had about 6 weeks to plan, market and execute the event. Despite this challenge, we feel as though we did a good job creating awareness about the charity and we definitely had a ton of fun. However, the funds generated from our event and further requests for donations after we hosted our event did not meet our planned goal.
  • Ski-Ball League during fundraising event – Team Response: Used this to our advantage to sell 50/50 raffle tickets, helped fill up the bar space with lower attendance than anticipated
  • Lack of Attendance – Team Response: Pushed for donations post event for those that could not attend
  • Higher Ticket Costs at the Door – Team Response: Made last minute decision to drop price to $40 to increase marketability to last minute attendees

Lessons Learned About Project Management:

Our team walked away with the following 2 critical lessons learned:

  • Importance of Effective Communication– During the course of project, it became very clear that effective communication is the key to a successful project. As a team, we had great communication. Sarah, our Project Manager was very organized, created timelines, utilized several tools such as Trello and What’s App, held in person meetings on weeknights and before class, and was always responsive and available to ensure our project was moving along. We found that the more collaborative we were together as a team, the more successful we were as a team. We also learned that over communicating is not the answer, communicating well is the answer.
  • Importance of a Time Management Plan – We learned that having a time management plan is critical. We learned to track the progress leading up to the event to avoid last minute “sprints”. We learned the importance of analyzing the project’s critical path – where the project could be delayed or set off track. We learned that we should have been more strategic of timelines and budgets and paid more attention to our project scope, time, cost and where we should be via our deadlines and project objectives.

Advice for Future Teams:

In addition to the above lessons learned, we make the following suggestions to future teams holding a similar event:

  • Choose a charity everyone wants to support and where a team member has a connection
  • We think future teams should definitely chose a charity that a member of the team has a connection to and has been involved with in the past. This allows for additional support from the charity. TLP provided a lot of feedback and support that was very resourceful and that facilitated a solid execution of our event. We had access to their board members, marketing materials, logos, social media channels, and the board president attended and was a resource at our event.
  • Choose a Supportive Venue.
  • The venue we chose to host our event supported our charity via donations, providing a free event space and providing free advertising for our event.  We found this to be extremely helpful!

 ,   

Few images from the event