Project Description – 

Dodge ball Tournament – Team 5 hosted a co-ed dodge ball tournament on October 19^th 2019 from 4:30-6:30pm at DePaul’s Ray Meyer Recreation Center. Team 5 will raised funds by charging an entry fee per team ($60.00) or individual fee ($10.00) for those that want to participate but do not have a team. In addition to entry fees, we sold raffle tickets for additional prizes and create a Facebook event to solicit donations from friends and family members who were not able to attend the event but still wanted to donate.

Description of Charity – 

Maestro Cares Foundation (MCF) is a non-profit organization that supports underprivileged youth, more specifically boys, by providing them with necessary resources, as stated above. The organization was founded by Zaidy Cardenas, her father, and Marc Anthony (a well-known musical artist). After volunteering at an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, Zaidy noticed that the all-girl orphanages were well taken care of compared to the all-boy orphanages. The boy’s orphanages lacked the most necessary things such as education and sufficient sleeping space for all.

As stated above, Zaidy knew that these young boys needed help and was determined to make a change, not only in the Dominican Republic, but all of Latin America and the U.S. Zaidy approached her father about the idea and her father introduced Marc Anthony to the idea. In 2012, Maestro Cares Foundation was created and has been successfully providing housing and other necessary resources to disadvantaged kids, thus providing them with a better future, which will ultimately allow these children to get out of poverty.

Final Results – 

In order to have a successful event, we needed to have a minimum of 48 participants (8 teams – 6 participants per team). The day of we had roughly 65-70 people show up to the facility. 50 of those were participants.

Initial Goal:

• Raise $500-$1000
• 48 participants
• Raise awareness of Maestro Cares

Final Goal:

• $1,065 raised
• 50 participants (2 were subs)
• Raised awareness about Maestro Cares

The $1,065 was a combination of participant fees and online/venmo donations along with day off raffle ticket sells.

Lessons Learned – 

One of the biggest lessons learned was how to communicate. We did not set a clear communication plan at first and several times our ideas and opinions got lost in endless text messages threads. There were times two team members were having a conversation about an idea/thought and the other two members were in meetings or not close to their phone and by the time they got to the phone a whole new conversation had already started. The second lesson is to be ready for the worst to happen no matter how prepared you are. The day of the event, we realized that we should have toured the facility the day before in order to have a better idea of what was going to happen the day after. It did not help that we were only allowed to arrive 15 minutes before the event started. Those 15 minutes felt more like 5 minutes because people started arriving and we had to just deal with it and start the registration process.

Advice to Future Teams – 

The biggest advice we can give to all future teams is to communicate at all times! It is very important to voice your thoughts and opinions, the last thing you want is to be planning for an event you are not fully on board with. After deciding on what you want to do, have fun! Our team had a really good time planning and hosting the dodge ball tournament.

Pictures of the Event –

 

Be The Match ® – Team 4

Project Description:

The project management class gave us the opportunity to partner with Be the Match ®  organization to apply our class concepts and make an impact in the lives of blood cancer patients and families. Be The Match®  organization was selected as it shares our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The project focused on increasing the ethnic diversity of the bone marrow donor registry to help more historically underserved patients find their match. Moreover, the project included an online donation campaign and a motive to raise awareness about the organization and high demand to correct health care disparities.

To carry forward growing the registry objective, two events were planned :

In-person Donor Drive: This event took place at the Commercial Club Park District’s annual Halloween party. The event was tactfully chosen to provide free access to hundreds of attendants from surrounding neighborhoods. We felt we had a compelling story with these potential donors of various ethnicities. At the event, interested people registered by creating an account online and swapping their cheek on-site or requesting a free toolkit to their home.

Formal Presentation to our MBA Cohort: With a similar strategy, a formal presentation was scheduled with our MBA colleagues to present the importance of supporting the Be The Match ®  mission to increase donor diversity. We provided every student with a QR code to easily connect to the registry and request a free swab kit to be mailed to their home.

To raise donations and awareness, a customized link to Be The Match ® was created. This direct link was shared in our marketing campaign message through different social media channels, email, and direct messaging to our networks. Additionally, a QR code was printed in business cards to distribute at the events and our social network events throughout the campaign.

Charity Description:

Be The Match ®, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program ® (NMDP), is a national

organization that manages the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world. Be the Match® is at the forefront of the war on blood cancers and other diseases. Their research brings new technology and innovative medical techniques to the patients that need it the most. They help save lives by supporting and matching patients with life-saving transplant donors, growing the registry, and raising funds and awareness.

Every three minutes someone in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer like leukemia. For many, their only hope for a cure is a bone marrow transplant. Of those patients, 70% don’t have a fully matched donor in their family. They will have to look to strangers, people who know nothing about their situation nor have any connection to them, to provide a cure. Only 1 in 430 of the U.S. registration members will go on to donate.

Success Metrics:

The Be The Match ® project focused on three distinct objectives:

1. Grow the Registry

Growing the registry was the primary objective with the aspiration to increase diversity in the underrepresented ethnic segments of the organization. The campaign efforts resulted in 17 new registrants with 35% of the total being of Hispanic descent, three times the ratio of the current Be The Match ® registry. Although the initial goal of 25 registrants was not met, the diversity of the individual donors was a success and as important.

2. Raise Awareness

Raising awareness outreach was primarily through social media channels. The goal was to capture a minimum of 120 “Likes” which was surpassed with a total of 771 combined “Likes” and “Views” . As supplementary, over 100 flyers were distributed within the community during the event.

3. Fundraise for Be The Match ®

Raising funds was an important part of the campaign. The funds would be valuable for extended research as well as helping to grow the registry. The goal was to raise a minimum of $200 and the actual campaign results were $400 through our online campaign. This amount translates to four registrants!

Lessons Learned:

Communication plays a critical role in the success of the project across all stakeholders. Regular cadence amongst members and stakeholders keeps the status and deliverables honest to prevent project delays. Furthermore, maintaining the message consistent within all channels improves the outreach response.

Optimism Bias can taint the view of the overall project planning. Prepare well thought out risk responses and contingency plans for all possible scenarios. Success is the goal of every project but being over optimistic can diverge from preparing mitigation steps for possible risks. In the Be The Match project event, unforeseen rainy weather and prospect donor concerns regarding medical privacy was a challenge that was not anticipated to reach the goals.

Advice for Future Teams:

Test Technology. In advance of an event, plan a dry run to ensure technology will work as expected. The Be the Match® event relied on technology for the donor registry. Having back up devices, connectivity access and configuration set up in advance prevents delays on the day of the event.

Prepare a Contingency Plan. This is key especially for events that are planned outdoors like the primary Be the Match® event. On the day of the event, rain was unavoidable all day. The event could not have taken place without having tents prepared to set up as contingency for weather inconveniences.

Know Your Organization. Be prepared to answer questions as if you were a representative of the organization. In the instance of Be the Match® event, people were concerned of medical privacy. The team members trained and studied Q&A in advance which eased the apprehension to register.

Have Fun! Sunshine or rain didn’t matter.  Enjoying time with the team for a priceless cause to save a life is irreplaceable.

Pictures from Be The Match ® Event:

  

   

 

 

Team 6 – Fundraiser Benefiting RMHC

Project Description

We conducted a tiered fundraising event that provides a variety of options for people to participate.  

• Online Fundraising:  The charity has a method for online fundraising through their website.  We used this website in social media and email fundraising efforts.
• Day of Service:  The volunteers worked with the head chef to fed approximately 80 families on Sunday, November 10, 2019 from 9:45 AM – 1 PM CT at Ronald McDonald House at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, IL. 
• Volunteer Appreciation: We provided each volunteer with donated gifts through employee matching programs.  This satisfies the need to thank volunteers for their service but didn’t cut into the proceeds we can provide the charity.

About our Charity

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana Chapter Business Office 1301 W. 22nd Street, Suite 905 Oak Brook, IL 60523

Website:  https://rmhccni.org/ Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Ronald.McDonald.House.CNI/ Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/rmhccni/ House Locations: Advocate Children’s Hospital Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Loyola University Medical Center Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital  UChicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital

Ronald McDonald House Charities impacted the lives of 2 team members (Adam and Chyristina) directly which was a leading reason we chose to focus on this particular charity.  Ronald McDonald House Charities is a national organization with local Chicagoland roots.  Their mission is to provide families the opportunity to get better together. Their philosophy is a sick child is a sick family.  To that end, they provide an opportunity for 150 families to stay close to the resources while their child is in the hospital for medical care or treatment.  This allows families to remain as close as possible and provide support to their child and each other during this difficult time. Our team has contacted the charity through a couple of mediums.  Volunteers are required to submit a formal application via the RMHC website (listed below). Our team has submitted an application and followed up with a subsequent email. We have chosen a couple of dates to hold our day of service.  RMHC has a social media presence, website, literature and other collateral our group can leverage during this charity event.  

Project Objectives

We found our preliminary budget was no longer viable as the project progressed.  Please find our revised projections below.  The measures used to assess project success were based on our most likely case scenario.

Project Goals and Success

This project exceeded all our expectations.  It has been a great experience to serve our community in this way.  Based on our success matrix, we exceeded our goals as follows:

Our team was acknowledged as one of the top contributors by for 2019 RMHC for Chicagoland and Northern Indiana.

Our total online fundraising effort exceeded our best case projection by $945, and the matching contributions for employers exceeded expectations by $775.  Our volunteers also came through providing us with 15 people for our day of service. Although we didn’t meet our best case scenario for volunteers, we did exceed both our worse and most likely case estimates.

We assessed a static amount of $40 of in-kind contributions per volunteer.  The in-kind amount is based on Chicago’s minimum wage of $10/hour. In addition, the company gifts for volunteer appreciation and volunteer paid parking have to be accounted for in our total budget calculations.  The volunteer appreciation gifts are Starbucks gift cards valued at $10/person provided to each volunteer via their confirmed email address.

Lessons Learned

• Have Realistic Goals:  We learned having realistic goals helped our project be successful.  We were able to focus on a few targeted areas and this made project management and execution easily divisible among team members. 
• Start Planning Early:  We had a full month to raise funds prior to our day of service event. This helped us standardized communications to donors and drive volunteer participation.  This also helped us minimize scope creep because we were able to assess results weekly based on our established goals.
• People Are Generous:  We couldn’t have made our goals without the contributions of our friends and families.  They made our goals possible.

Advice for Future Teams

• Personal Stories Matter:  Two of our team members were personally impacted by the charity, and we believe this is a key reason why our results were so stellar.  Choose something you’re passionate about.  
• Contingency Plans Count:  Thinking through all the things that can go wrong, assigning team members to monitor and respond to those risks, and planning for contingencies helped a TON.  We were able to effectively manage towards mitigating the risks which made our project easier. 
• Work with an Organized Charity:  We didn’t have some of the issues other teams in the past had because our charity is well established and organized.  If you choose to work with a less organized charity, understand that will impact your project scoping.
• Knowing Your Team Matters:  We are part of an 18 month MBA cohort so we knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  We were able to assign tasks based on those things which made our project run smoothly. Get to know your team outside of class.  That connection works wonders.

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About Our Event

Here’s a compilation of pictures from our Day of Service. 

 Project Description:

As part of our project management course we were provided the opportunity to apply concepts we learned by carrying out a service project. Our team chose to partner with Casa Central an organization that provides a myriad of social services to those in need. We chose to organize a coat drive and fundraiser to both collect money and clothing, while increasing awareness of the organization. We partnered with Wise Owl Drinkery & Cookhouse as the venue for our event and began leveraging our networks for attendees and donations. We raffled off a variety of great prizes and reached an agreement with Wise Owl to sell drink tickets as an additional way to raise money.

Charity Description:

Casa Central transforms lives and strengthens communities, with a special focus on the LatinX community. Casa Central provides a network of social services propels a diverse population of all ages toward self-sufficiency and a higher quality of life.  Some of the programs provided include:

• Children and Youth – early learning academy and school age program
• Individual and Families – Violence prevention and intervention, La Posada for families who are homeless, etc.
• Seniors – Adult Wellness and Home Care Services

Results

We set out with a goal of having 50 people attend our event, collecting 100 articles of clothing and making a profit of $500 dollars. While our monetary goal was conservative as a group we had a personal stretch goal of $2000 which we managed to exceed by collecting over $3000 dollars and making a profit of over $2,500. We ended up being successful in all 3 of our goals

Our results are below

• Profit of $2,611 in monetary donations
• Collected 156 items of winter coats and accessories (gloves, scarves, hats)
• Had 55 attendees at our event.

Earnings Breakdown

Sales	Price	Quantity Sold	Value
Raffle Tickets	$5.00	172	$860.00
Raffle Bundle	$20.00	59	$1,180.00
Drink Tickets	$8.00	2	$16.00
Drink Bundle	$20.00	35	$700.00
Monetary Donations	$630.00	N/A	$630.00
Total Raised			$3,386.00
Costs	Price	Quantity Bought	Value
Drink Ticket Cost	$5.00	155	$775.00
Total Cost			$775.00
	Total Monetary Profit	$2,611.00

 

Lessons Learned

This was a very educational experience with many valuable lessons we can take into our future project activities. First and foremost is to make sure your risk management plan is thorough, and you are prepared to enact your contingencies. For example, we had planned to have a speaker from our agency address the attendees, but they fell ill on the day of the event. Our contingency was to have a board member that would be attending speak instead, but they were not comfortable speaking and declined. We luckily had a second contingency and had one of our group members speak instead.  Additionally, if you plan to use any sort of logos that don’t belong to you, you need to do work on the front end. We ended up delaying the distribution of flyers and marketing materials for close to a month because we were waiting on approval to use the charity’s logo.

Advice to Future Teams

1.  The best advice we can provide to any teams organizing a fundraiser in the future would be to maintain clear communication with your venues. Have some sort of documentation of what is discussed and agreed upon and make sure you are on the same page when trying to execute your event successfully.
2. Have constant communication with your group and don’t procrastinate the more work you do on the front end the easier it is to execute your event.

Team 2- SPENGA for The Anhelo Project

Project Description:

To fully apply concepts learned in our project management class, our team partnered with The Anhelo Project organization to host an event, raise funds via raffle and online donations and increase awareness of the organization. The event we decided to hold consisted of an exercise class, hosted by SPENGA. SPENGA is an hour-long class broken into three workouts: spinning,high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and yoga. Given the class was limited to only 28 participants, we created a Google Form for participants to fill out and submit a minimum donation of $20 to have a confirmed spot at SPENGA. The form was used to track participants, collect class donations and prevent overbookings.

Description of Charity:

The Anhelo Project, (Anhelo meaning Dream), is a non-for-profit organization that consists of a group of student leaders and professionals from various educational institutions and community-based organizations in Chicago.  The goal is to support undocumented students, who despite growing up in the United States and earning a high school diploma, continuously face challenging roadblocks when pursuing a post-secondary education.  The biggest obstacle is financial aid due to their ineligibility to apply for federal and state financial aid.  The Anhelo Project Dream Scholarship is available to undocumented high school seniors, undergraduate and graduate students residing in Illinois, attending any college or university within the State of Illinois.

• Founded in 2010
• Raised over $100,000
• Provided 50 student with scholarships

Results:

We had 27 attendees for our SPENGA class. Originally, we had a full class a week prior to the event, but 4 people cancelled the day before. Three teammates were able to take the class as our contingency plan kicked in to ensure a full class.

Original Goals:

• Raise $1,000
• 28 Participants
• Raise Awareness of The Anhelo Project through social media

Actual Results:

• Raised $2,000 (a full scholarship for 1 student)
• 27 Participants
• Posted on social media about the event, but no facts about the actual organization

Breakdown of donations:

SPENGA Class	$620
Raffle Tickets	$285
Online Donations	$515
Grand Total	$2000

 

Lessons Learned:

We assigned tasks to each team member and everyone communicated their progress.  Communication was key, we had a group text chat that we used constantly and responses were prompt. We encourage teams to use the risk management plan and ensure you have back-ups if issues arise. We did not realize the entrance to the SPENGA class was in the back of the building until the day of and quickly mobilized to send out texts to our attendees on the location of the door. Originally, we wanted to bring more awareness to The Anhelo Project by utilizing our social media platforms. The issue we encountered was not everyone had social media and/or we were all on different platforms. This led to the team concentrating heavily on securing class spots and online donations and less awareness.

Advice to Future Teams:

1. We’d caution future teams on the selection of an organization that may appear politically sensitive (i.e. immigration). A couple of our team members work at corporations that match donations from a pre-approved list of charities. We were not able to leverage the corporate sponsorship such as, the match or raffle prizes, due to sensitivity around our organization.
2. If you are doing a raffle, secure prizes early in the process to ensure proper marketing. It was easier to sell/market tickets when you already have the prizes selected. The more appealing the prize, the more tickets you will sell.
3. When choosing a charity be aware of the size of the organization as smaller non-for-profits may not have a full-time staff member and/or are ran by volunteers. Those volunteers may not be as responsive.

 

Pictures of Event 

 

 Photos related to the project (Attached)

Check out our pictures from our event!

 

G.E.M.S “Girls Empowering Meaningful

Brief description of the project:

Stories” is an after-school program with New Life Centers of Chicagoland in the Little Village neighborhood, which helps girls with homework, one on one mentoring to help navigate with issues at home, school, peer pressure and much more. Our group (Cristina Grijalva, Diana Mayorga, Victor Mejia and Paola Villarreal) heard their stories and started with a goal in mind to raise awareness of the program and funds for this wonderful charity organization.

For our MGT 598 Final Project, we were responsible for creating an initial project proposal, developing a project implementation plan with deliverables, create a risk management plan to prevent and be prepared for any issues that might arise, all with the goal to create an effective and efficient event. The profits we earned from the trivia night and donations were donated to the charity. Before the trivia started, we introduced Jazmin Torres, Girls Program Coordinator for the G.E.M.S. program, and Liliana Mejia, Director of Partner Engagement of New Life Centers. Their message was a brief introduction of how the program started, the current state of the program, and how the future funds will help and impact the Little Village youth.

 

Brief description of the charity:

https://vimeo.com/53105806

New Life Centers is an organization that has many after school programs such as Arise Creations, Cross Over, La Semilla, Little Village Basketball, Little Village Little League, Little Village Summer Softball, Running Forward, The Vine, and Urban Life Skills, and G.E.M.S. All these programs are either after-school programs, summer programs, or sports leagues that allow kids of all ages to participate and stay out of the streets. New Life Centers originated in 2005 to address the needs of the neighbors surrounding New Life Community Churches, as neighbors approached the church with pressing issue of youth violence, gang violence, teen pregnancy, justice system involvement, unemployment and more issues that this community faced every day. New Life responded with programs that fit the community and now they are in Little Village, Midway, Humboldt Park, Cicero, Jefferson Park, and Oak Forest neighborhoods.

New Life Centers continues to create programs that address the neighborhood needs and empower neighborhood involvement. These sites pursue seeks to equip leaders within each of these New Life communities to serve their neighbors through health, education, and employment services for all ages.

Factual analysis of success in terms of project objectives:

Project Objectives

• Awareness of program:
  • Charity representative provided a synopsis of the organization’s mission.
• Attendance projection:
  • 25-30 participants that had no knowledge of charity
• Fundraiser GOAL:
  • $500

Project Success:

• Awareness of program:
  • 53 new people in attendance of the event were able to hear about the organization mission. They heard about their impacts and were able to view the flyers located on each table of the bar and how to connect with them via email, phone, social media, etc.
• Attendance results:
  • Total attendance was 53 participants (excluding 4 team members)
• Fundraiser Final TOTAL:
  • $6,850

The event was managed by the 4 members. We had a project manager was Victor Mejia, charity lead, day of event coordinator and marketing, and an accountant lead Diana Mayorga. Again, all the profit generated was donated and a few members of our group and charity attendees decided to sign up and become involved with G.E.M.S moving forward.

To participate in the trivia, we charged $10 to play trivia per person and sold all 100 raffle tickets ($3 for 1 ticket or $5 for 2 tickets). In addition, the bar was gracious enough to donate 20% of earnings of the food/beverage sales to our charity.

Two or three lessons learned about managing projects:

• WBS are effective to leverage and ensures each stakeholder has all assignments and stayed on target
• The Project Manager is crucial in managing intergroup differences
• Always make sure you maintain accurate financial record when you are dealing with charity funds, funds for profit, etc.

Advice for future teams doing similar projects:

If the event is donating a portion of their funds to your charity, ensure that you have transparency on figures used to derive donations

If you have a “MC-Master of Ceremony”, the value added for an experienced trivia host added a special element to the event that goes beyond the numbers.

Pay attention to the Server/Bartender to customer ratio. Ensure that you communicate the best you the correct number of attendees to the event. (Note: This can be hard at time since it is hard to gather the correct amount of RSVP’s as people adjust always). This might be small; however, we want everyone (event space, event space employees and attendees) to enjoy themselves.