{"id":6549,"date":"2015-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/?p=6549"},"modified":"2024-05-08T17:56:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T17:56:42","slug":"movers-shakers-engage-raises-unexpected-92k-hosting-board-game-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/blog\/movers-shakers-engage-raises-unexpected-92k-hosting-board-game-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Movers &#038; Shakers: ENGAGE Raises an Unexpected $92k By Hosting A Board Game Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/assets\/Screen-Shot-2015-07-13-at-9.05.29-PM.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-6550\" src=\"https:\/\/causevox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Screen-Shot-2015-07-13-at-9.05.29-PM.jpg\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2015-07-13 at 9.05.29 PM\" width=\"645\" height=\"237\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>When third party nonprofit fundraising turns personal.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Located at the widely renowned epicenter of the board game community, Seattle-based Lyla Ross closed her practice as a clinical social worker to start a charitable giving and community outreach program called ENGAGE for her family-owned game business. Their program includes third party fundraising for charities, most recently raising over $92,000 to help feed families in her neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p>ENGAGE\u2019s latest charitable event: hosting a board game tournament, for the second year in a row, to raise money for Hopelink, a Seattle foodbank. Lyla was motivated to choose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hope-link.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Hopelink<\/a> for the second year in a row because of their long-term contribution to the community.In true<span style=\"color: #008000;\">&nbsp;<\/span>gaming fashion, they had a strategy &#8211; and they had a mission to accomplish.<\/p>\n<p>Strategy: Use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/peer-to-peer-fundraising-software\/\">peer-to-peer fundraising<\/a><br \/>\nMission: Raise $30,000 to feed families in the Seattle area<\/p>\n<p><i>Read on to learn more about how Lyla and her team brought in more than triple their goal!<\/i><\/p>\n<h2>Can you tell me more about your store and what you do?<\/h2>\n<p>Sure &#8211; fifteen years ago my husband opened an online retail gaming company -Cardkingdom.com- that has<ins cite=\"mailto:Candace%20Cody\" datetime=\"2015-07-15T18:02\">,<\/ins> in time, turned into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.moxboardinghouse.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mox Boarding House<\/a>, a storefront for board gamers. We\u2019re noticing board games are kind of having a renaissance within the down economy, and our game store and caf\u00e9 has&nbsp;become a community space beyond what we had even hoped!<\/p>\n<p>Not too long after opening our storefront, we began receiving requests for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/donation-page\/\">donations<\/a> to local charities, so in response, we created our in-house volunteer group and charitable giving program ENGAGE.<\/p>\n<p>One event we created is a board game tournament called The Gauntlet, which is a yearly fundraiser for various charities; we had no idea it would become a mega conduit of financial resources for our local non-profit community!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3jlsRNolt7A\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>What was your fundraising approach this year?<\/h2>\n<p>Since gamers love a challenge, we created The Gauntlet as a day-long board game tournament that you only get to be a part of if you and your team commit to raising money for the selected beneficiary.<\/p>\n<p><i>The details of The Gauntlet<\/i><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We had twenty teams of four, so we had eighty contestants.<\/li>\n<li>The fundraising campaign lasted six weeks before the tournament.<\/li>\n<li>The tournament itself was a ten-hour board game tournament.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i>Fundraising &amp; Winning Incentives<\/i><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Bragging rights<\/li>\n<li>Carrying <i>The Gauntlet <\/i>trophy (an actual gauntlet) around for a year<\/li>\n<li>Strategic advantages within the tournament as participants reach higher fundraising levels<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>1. Know your Audience<br \/>\nBy appealing to a gamer\u2019s passion to play games, we incentivize them with advantages to be utilized within the tournament as they reach increasing fundraising milestones.&nbsp; It\u2019s an invite-only event, and as such, it is considered to be a privilege to be invited since it has become a bit of a \u201cWho\u2019s Who\u201d within the local gaming industry.<\/p>\n<p>2. Motivate Your Fan Base<br \/>\nAs the event coordinators, we left it up to the various teams to find ways to motivate their own fan base to raise funds for our beneficiaries.&nbsp; Many of the teams consisted of game designers that have participated in Kickstarter campaigns and are quite successful at creating fundraising campaigns with meaningful language.<\/p>\n<p>Our teams found fun ways to motivate their friends and family to donate and\/or offer a thank you for their donations.&nbsp; Some of those include:<ins cite=\"mailto:Neesha%20%20Roberts\" datetime=\"2015-07-16T16:05\"><br \/>\n<\/ins><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Creating a new character within the game they design if the team hits the team fundraising goal<\/li>\n<li>Uploading a video of a team member eating increasingly spicy food as the funds went up<\/li>\n<li>Offering time in the game studio with other game designers and a pizza party!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Can you tell me about the success of one of your fundraising teams?<\/h2>\n<p>Yes! We had one team, Bungie, (a major local video game production company) that raised so much money they \u201cbroke our system.\u201d They have an international reach through their newsletter so they let people know they were raising money for the event and offered fun thank you gifts at each level of giving. All of a sudden\u2014money just started rolling in from around the world! We had twenty teams, but Bungie raised $53,000 of our $92,000 on their own!<\/p>\n<p>One thing we are proud of is that even without Bungie\u2019s fundraising dollars, we would have surpassed our $30,000 goal, so it felt great that they weren\u2019t the only team that helped us raise this money- it was truly a group effort.<\/p>\n<h2>What tips would you offer other fundraisers?<\/h2>\n<p>1. Find out what motivates your fan base and target audience.<br \/>\nSince we were dealing with gamers, we turned fundraising into a game because we knew it would motivate them.<\/p>\n<p>2. Be thoughtful about how long you want your campaign to run.<br \/>\nThe majority of the money of our campaign came in during the last week.<\/p>\n<p>3. Utilize giving metrics.<br \/>\nWe offered giving options based on metrics. On our front page, we told people you could give \u201cx\u201d number of meals to a family of four for \u201cx\u201d dollars.<\/p>\n<h2>What was one of your favorite moments?<\/h2>\n<p>At the end of the tournament, the captain of the winning team stood up \u2013 gauntlet in hand- and told the entire room, \u201cI wasn\u2019t planning on saying this, but I\u2019m so proud to be a part of this event. Growing up, there was a time my mom was dependent on food banks to feed us, and we wouldn\u2019t have made it without organizations like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hope-link.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Hopelink<\/a>. It means a lot that we won today, but it\u2019s even more exciting that we got to do so much good!\u201d&nbsp; There was not a dry eye in the house.<\/p>\n<p><i>All together The Gauntlet raised enough to provide 30,629 meals for a family of four.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When third party nonprofit fundraising turns personal. Located at the widely renowned epicenter of the board game community, Seattle-based Lyla Ross closed her practice as a clinical social worker to start a charitable giving and community outreach program called ENGAGE for her family-owned game business. Their program includes third party fundraising for charities, most recently [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Team CauseVox","author_link":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/author\/teamcausevox\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.causevox.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}