Special event ideas for your workplace

Participation in campaign-related events helps people to connect, establishes a great atmosphere at your workplace while creating an opportunity for inspiring your colleagues to donate and make a change in our community.

Speakers and agency tours referred to in the event descriptions can be booked through UWBC using the online form.

$15 Food Security Challenge/Cooking Contest

Challenge your co-workers to feed a group of 6 a nutritious and filling meal on a budget of $15. Have a volunteer judge you meal on nutritional value, presentation and creativity.

In teams, challenge yourselves to feed a family of 6 on a budget of $15. Then have your CEO, a local agency impact speaker, a retiree, and/or a local restaurant chef judge the meal on nutritional value, presentation and creativity. Individual team members can divide up tasks by who plans the meal, purchases groceries, cooks different courses, serves and presents the meal to the larger group. In order to participate in the activity, participants must have pledged a donation.

This activity helps to make real the struggle that children and low incomes families face on a daily basis to feed themselves on a tiny budget. Most effective if paired with a lunch and learn from an agency that works with children/families to provide or teach them about healthy meals.

Download our Food Security Team Challenge – Living Below the Line document for more information.

Wine Survivor

Bring in a bottle of wine and compete against your colleagues to win them all!

It’s easy to plan and participate in. To play, a person needs to bring a bottle of wine ($15-20 value); a business card and a completed pledge form for United Way. Pull one or more business cards per day and send an email or announcement to participants with the names. The last name(s) remaining wins all the wine! Note that you may form alliances and split the winning wine between colleagues.

Best Practice: In your daily announcement email, include a short United Way video, an interesting statistic about your community and the work you make possible with United Way, and/ or a story.

Download our Wine-Survivor document for more information.

Daily Indulgence Drop

Challenge your staff to a “Daily Indulgence drop for your community,” asking staff members to consider forfeiting one item from their daily routine once a week (their daily coffee, muffin or lunch) and instead donate the equivalent through payroll deductions. You’ll be amazed how quickly each item adds up at the end of one month! If you spend $5.00 on a coffee, this could be a $10.00 / pay cheque donation or more.

Variation: Chocolate/Treat Ban Have each employee vow to give up a special food or drink item or treat they love for the month of the campaign. Put up a large campaign calendar and have everyone initial each day. It’s a small measure of what those in poverty do without. Have a UW impact speaker come speak on Poverty or Senior Isolation to kick things off.

Best Practice: Link the daily indulgence drop with the pledge form or pledge passport. For example, those who stick with the daily drop can gain a stamp on their passport, which can be redeemed for access to special events or raffle tickets.

Sticker Bombing

This activity guarantees laughs. Pay $5 to send a ‘sticker bomb’ to your co-worker, and you get to provide an office-appropriate costume for them to wear for the morning or afternoon! Co-workers can counter the sticker bomb by paying $7 to buy-out.

The buyer determines what the person they have sticker bombed has to wear: a costume, all yellow, super formal, etc. The costume cannot cost you or the person you have bombed anything, you should own it or be able to borrow it. The person who has bought the sticker bomb chooses when their colleague has to wear the outfit during the campaign.

The person being sticker bombed can reverse the sticker bomb by paying more than the buyer, thereby creating a bidding war. The cost to sticker bomb a person is: $5, the cost for a one-time buy out or reversal of being sticker bombed is $7. If you would like to sticker bomb someone but would like to remain anonymous the cost is $6, and you must provide a committee member (to be detailed in the poster) with the costume prior to the day the person must wear it. Stickers that read “I’m dressed this way for United Way” are provided by your United Way representative.

Mini Golf

Have each department set up a mini-golf hole and compete with other teams for a fantastic prize!

Best Practice: Teams should be made up of staff who have pledged to United Way.

Lunch and Learn

Bring your workplace together by hosting a lunch and learn. Provide lunch as an added incentive, or ask employees to bring their own lunch.

An easy and inspirational introduction to United Way! Book a speaker(s), provide lunch and pledge forms and United Way does the rest! Spice up your lunch and learn by adding movies, contests, prizes and more. An easy and inspirational introduction to United Way! Book a speaker(s), provide lunch and pledge forms and United Way does the rest!

Introduce statistics related to Stop the Growl – i.e. 1 in 5 children in BC live in poverty OR the Food Bank in BC feeds more than 100,000 people in BC, 1/3 of these are children.

For example, divide up attendees based on those statistics and allow 2/3 of the group to eat, and require the other 1/3 of the group to wait.

Or restrict a part of the group from eating dishes containing fresh fruits and vegetables. These demonstrate the reality and lack of access to healthy food for many kids in the Lower Mainland and across BC. Of course, we encourage removing the barriers at a later point of the lunch so everyone can enjoy the full meal together!

Variation: a “Sundae and Learn” Provide the ice cream, sauces and fun toppings and ask staff to bring a bowl to make their own sundae.

Variation: Pancake Breakfast United Way is a part of a complete breakfast! Ask CEOs or managers to flip the flapjacks. Don’t forget sausage, butter, syrup etc. Consider asking each department to donate an item. Donate the proceeds to United Way.

Best Practice: Invite an executive member and a union representative (if applicable) to make an introduction and short speech at the event.

Download our Lunch and Learn document for more information.

For more information about special events, contact your Campaign Manager.