A Contest Modeled on Reality TV Shows Pulls In $2-Million for Charities

FUND-RAISING IDEAS

John A. Ritter, chief executive officer of Focus Property Group, a Las Vegas company, decided he wanted his company’s annual year-end charity event to be more than just the usual walkathon or food drive, and he wanted it to be fun. So he consulted with a public-relations firm, and together the two came up with the idea of doing an event that would resemble a reality television show.

In the event, called the “Community 911 Challenge,” teams of employees were pitted against one another to see which one could raise the most money for charity. The competition ran from August until December 2005 and raised more than $2-million for an array of nonprofit causes.

About 100 employees, including workers at Landtek, a land-development company that often works with Focus Property Group, formed four teams of about 25 people, and gave themselves the names Charity Builders, Family Focus, Mended Hearts, and Team Endeavor.

Each group of employees was given $2,500 to get started, and was promised that every dollar raised up to $25,000 would be matched and turned over to the charity the group had chosen to represent. Mr. Ritter provided the matching funds, in part from his company and in part from his charitable foundation.

Using elements from the television shows American Idol, The Apprentice, and Survivor, the teams first selected a charity, then had to come up with a special project to support the group, devise fund-raising plans and events, develop a timeline, set a budget, and assign tasks to each team member.

Those plans were submitted to a panel of “Community Idol” judges at the end of August. Then, for the next three months, the teams periodically gave updates to the judges, who gave them money to carry out their projects.

The teams were judged throughout the contest by how they overcame their biggest obstacle, managed the project, devised a strategy, and capitalized on the opportunities available, and on the results they achieved in raising money and helping their chosen charity.

The Family Focus team raised $330,000 in cash and donated products and services to build a new day-care center and job-training facility, as well as an animal shelter, for the Shade Tree, a Las Vegas shelter for homeless and abused women and children and their pets. The team chose the Shade Tree after the charity explained that many women and children will not leave abusive situations unless they can take their pets with them.

Among the donated products the team solicited were basic necessities — such as socks, underwear, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, and soap — for the women and children at the shelter, and paint for the new facility.

The teams put their professional expertise and connections to work in several cases. For instance, the Charity Builders team decided to use its experience in the land-development process to help officials at Olive Crest, a foster-care organization that operates in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington State, sell five acres of land it owns and purchase land better suited to building a children’s educational center, as well as providing a place where several homes for foster families could be constructed. Charity Builders also raised $342,000 through fund-raising events to help Olive Crest build the new facilities.

Beyond the fund-raising events, all team members were expected to volunteer at the charity they were raising money for, and each team submitted a volunteer log at each presentation. Each hour of volunteer work by a team member was worth $25 for the team’s charity, and each team put in at least 1,000 hours of volunteer work by the contest’s end.

In November, each team made its final presentation to Mr. Ritter, or “The John,” as he was called during the contest, in imitation of how Donald Trump, the businessman who stars in The Apprentice, is referred to by his nickname, “The Donald.” But unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Ritter says he did not fire anyone if he didn’t like his or her plan.

At the companies’ holiday party, Focus and Landtek planned to announce the result of the competition and award the winning team’s charity $50,000, and second- and third-place teams $25,000 and $15,000, respectively. But Mr. Ritter was so impressed with how much money the teams raised that he decided to give each team $50,000.

After Community 911 ended, Mr. Ritter says, almost every one of his employees said the same things about the experience: Their commitment to their particular charity will continue well into the future, they enjoyed the chance to become closer to their co-workers, and they now think of themselves as lifelong philanthropists.

Nicol Montalto, a member of the Mended Hearts team and an executive assistant at Focus Property Group, says that she had always wanted to be involved with a charity, but wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to do, or quite how to do it. But her interaction with her team’s charity, Child Haven, a Las Vegas home for abused, neglected, and abandoned children, was so rewarding, she says, she now plans to volunteer there.

And even though participating in the contest was hard work, it was a worthwhile endeavor, Ms. Montalto says. “We stayed late and came in on weekends,” she says, “but it was sad when it ended. I’d definitely do it again.”