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Event Summary
Status as of
11/29/2007
Team Halo is a
non-profit group organized as part of a BA 462 Project Management
team project. The main objective of our group was to raise proceeds
for the National Military Families Association (NMFA), which
is the only organization that represents officer and enlisted
families of all uniformed services (Army, Navy, Air Force,
Marine Corps, Coast Guard) at the national level. It prepares
spouses and children to better deal with hardships unique to
military life and helps protect benefits vital to these families,
including those of the deployed, wounded, and fallen.
NMFA helps those seeking resources for:
themselves and combat-weary service members returning home from war
with fragile mental heath, for optimistic-but-anxious children
separated from parents during deployments, for spouses forging ahead
with educations to build better lives for their families or to
prepare for the unthinkable, for surviving spouses seeking
information about benefits available to them as they cope with their
losses, and for the proud parents of single service members -- many
of whom leave young siblings behind at home.
The event we employed as a fund raising tool
for the NMFA was a two-day Halo 3 video game tournament, Halo 4
Heroes, held on November 16th & 17th in Bexell
Hall on the Oregon State University Campus.
We had both a best case and worst case
scenario. Our best case scenario was a goal of raising $2000 for
the NMFA. To reach this best case scenario we would require the
paid attendance of 192 contestants and have all equipment and our
grand prize, an XBox 360 gaming system, donated. Our worst case
scenario was to raise $500, under this situation we would have to
pay for the rental of all equipment and for all prizes.
Our final contestant count was marked at 100
contestants, for a total of $1000 in ticket sales. In addition, we
received some cash donations from private sponsors, donated color
fliers and equipment rental, twelve cases of Mountain Dew from
Pepsi, and several smaller incentives from local businesses. The
total valuation of all ticket sales and donated items was
$3,113.43. We were unable to locate a business willing to sponsor
any large prizes therefore we had to purchase these out of our cash
proceeds. After the purchase of all prizes and repayment of $100.00
to Dr. Larson for our seed money, our final net proceeds were
$720.00.
The management of this project, overall, was
very good, but there was room for improvement. Our marketing
campaign, in particular, was quite effective. We utilized several
different strategies to reach our target market, including a
dedicated web site and Pay Pal sign up, a donation drive web page
extended on this site, physical kiosk sign ups, the development and
distribution of 2,500 color fliers, a MySpace page, a Facebook page,
and an announcement on the College of Business website. We actually
had contestants from as far away as Portland and Eugene.
It has been suggested, and agreed upon, that
the grand prize could have very likely been a deterrent to many
contestants who, otherwise, might have signed up just for the fun of
the event. In addition, we could have potentially generated more
funds by working with a local pizza shop to provide food for our
captive audience.
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