Overview
A financial services company contacted us to produce a teambuilding event during their national sales meeting in Dallas, TX for 500 attendees. We originally proposed a wide range of fun and interactive activities, but the winning concept was one we call “Making Wishes Come True,” which had a Corporate-Social Responsibility (CSR) element that made it appealing to all parties involved.
Objective
The client’s objective was to bring the different sales teams together with a fun, teambuilding activity that both unified the teams and incentivized them to work towards a common goal.
Our “Making Wishes Come True” concept benefitted the Boys and Girls Club of Dallas (BGCD) and our objective was to leverage the teambuilding event to raise money for the club and ultimately to positively affect both organizations.
Making Wishes Come True
Our initial design involved a game night with all the games being donated to the BGCD afterwards. We wanted this CSR event to really fulfill a NEED, so that the impact of this sales group could really be felt. However, through our partnership and communication with the BGCD, we learned that what they really needed were incentive gifts for their educational programs. The Boys and Girls Club of America focuses on creating a safe place for young kids to learn and grow, while educating them on becoming healthy, responsible citizens and scholars through their character building and life-enhancing programs such as the Torch Club, Keystone Teens, Diplomas to Degrees, Healthy Lifestyle, Project Learn, Money Matters: Make it Count, and Smart Moves to name a few.
Keeping these needs in mind along with the client’s vision, we designed a fun, interactive activity based on these programs that catered to everybody’s strengths. The room was divided into 3 zones: Physical Challenges, Mental Challenges and Minute-to-Win-It Challenges. Depending on the level of difficulty, the attendees received gold star stickers upon completing the challenge. The overall goal of the event was for the attendees to do as many activities as they could in an hour to collect as many stars as they could. The more stars they collected, the more money would be given to BGCD at the end of the event.
Challenges
- 1 hour – The activity served as entertainment between the last education session and dinner
- Limited space – The activity was hosted in a hotel foyer
- 500 attendees – How do we get 500 people to all have fun at the same time?
- Catering to an international audience comprised of left-brained financial professionals
Solutions
- While there wasn’t much we could do about the time constraint, we sped up the communication of the activity instructions by having both a written workbook and an Emcee giving verbal direction. That way, attendees could just skip to having fun!
- As a result of expert planning and coordination, the activity flow was diagrammed effectively so that the space didn’t feel crowded
- We had over 20 games orchestrated simultaneously so that each person can play a different game with minimal wait times in line
- We provided simple, easy to follow activities that satisfied both the extraverts and introverts in the group.
~Physical Challenge Highlights: Basketball Pop-a-Shot, Jumping Jacks, and Hacky Sack
~Mental Challenge Highlights: Geography Challenge, Memory Game, Spelling Bee and Pictionary
~Minute To Win It Highlights: Face the Cookie, Flip Cup, Pencil Grab and Golf Ball Stack
Results
Success! The teams successfully completed the challenges together, earning stars as they went along. At the end, they put all the stars on a banner that spelled out their company name. Together, the group raised $10,000.00. A representative from the Boys and Girls Club of Dallas was present that night to show her deepest appreciation in a moving speech that highlighted the true result of their efforts. With this money, the club will be able to:
- Buy lunches for kids during weekends and the summer when they’re out of school
- Pay for homework tutoring for the kids
- Provide SAT/ACT prep for high school seniors
- Purchase school supplies for the classrooms
- Pay for education incentives such as gift cards and scholarships