Growth of Charity Team Building: 2007 to 2008 was the dawn of a brand-new industry that combined fun team building activities with charitable donations. Although Build-A-Bike ® was the first big charity team building activity, more followed. In this post, we’ll explain what happened in those early years to make charity team building activities commonplace in the business world. By mid-2006, only a few hundred people had experienced Build-A-Bike ®. However, the word was spreading like wildfire. The events were so fun, so memorable, and so different from everything else that was out there, that our phones were ringing off the hook.
The First Big Growth of Charity Team Building — Late 2006
Almost one full year after we created the program and just nine month from the first time we taught one, we were averaging almost ten events every month. We were facilitating one to three every week. In August of 2006, PricewaterhouseCooper ordered another two events. The word had spread throughout the organization, and everyone wanted one. Also in that month Pfizer and Cardinal Health had us lead Build-A-Bike’s ® for their teams as well. Over the last decade,we have taught more events for the healthcare industry than any other. These two events were the first of hundreds. Later in the year, we taught a huge program for Genentech. Over the years we have probably led Build-A-Bike’s ® for 1000’s of employees of Genentech.
During this time period, we also taught programs for Coors, Coca-Cola, and Hershey. I remember teaching a Fearless Presentations ® class in Denver on a Thursday afternoon. I then drove to Golden, Colorado to lead a Build-A-Bike ® activity that evening. The group was so much fun, that they took me on a tour of the brewery afterwards. It was so much fun. The Coca-Cola event was in Houston, and they chose to donate the bikes to the United Way. The United Way in Houston has a huge complex, so they allowed Coke to use one of their meeting rooms free of charge.
The most touching event that year, though, was for Hershey in… well… Hershey, PA. The famous chocolate company decided to donate their bikes to children at the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Lancaster, PA. In October of 2006, a gunman walked into the one-room school and murdered 10 young girls ages 6-13 years old. It was a truly horrific event in this quiet little town. So the gift from the Hershey company was much appreciated.
Charity Team Building Explosion in 2007-2008
The word was still spreading, and everyone wanted this new activity. In 2007, we began working with great companies like General Electric, Symantec, Johnson & Johnson, and more. GE did their first Build-A-Bike ® with us in January of 2007, and they hired us another half dozen times before the end of the year. Symantec hired us three years in a row to do events at their huge annual convention for hundreds and hundreds of people. And Johnson & Johnson hired us for the first time in October of 2007, and they have become our single biggest customer of all time. We have conducted dozens and dozens of programs for J&J over the years.
Some of the other notable events of this time period were for Baxter Healthcare, DaVita, Walmart, Siemens, and t-Mobile. Each of these companies have become multiple repeat customers.
One of my most memorable events from that year was a program that I did for Diageo. This company is the owner of a number of very famous alcohol brands like Guinness, Johnny Walker, Crown Royal, Seagrums, and many, many more. We had a unique problem with this event. It didn’t seem right to have a bunch of kids come to a hotel and tell them that Captain Morgan wants you to have a new bike. So, we had to get a little creative. We ended up donating the bikes to a police officer safety camp where officers taught kids how to ride bicycles safely. We even had a police captain come to the event to accept the bikes on behalf of the officers. (And then afterwards, we all had a few drinks!)
Other Charity Team Building Activities Came on the Scene
Originally, we had a challenge delivering Build-A-Bike ® programs for small groups. First, since we were buying all the bikes, helmets, and materials retail at the time, the cost for a small group was often outside of their budget. More importantly, though, we usually divided the group into teams of six to eight people building one bike. So, if you only had 16 people, you’d only build two bikes. It was anti-climactic to say the least.
So, to fix this, we created the Guys-N-Dolls activity. This activity had the group build a huge, four-foot-tall dollhouse (or two). The event was easier on the pocketbook, and it allowed for the smaller groups to interact more fluidly. The Guys-N-Dolls activity has also changed over the years. Today, we call it the Amazing Builders charity team building activity. Over the years, we figured out that we can basically build or donate anything using this activity. Most often, today, participants donate kid’s backpacks full of school supplies. For more details about Amazing Builders, click here. Some of our first clients for this activity were Progressive Insurance and E-Trade.
In addition, we created the wildly popular Rescue Bear ® charity team building activity. In this activity, we donate stuffed animals to firefighters and police officers. These rescue workers keep the stuffed animals in their cars and on the trucks to give to children who have been through a tragedy. By the end of 2008, we were doing dozens of Rescue Bear ® activities every year as well.
Charity Team Building Activities are Here to Stay
During this initial growth spurt, we started out donating around 500 bikes per year to charity. However, by the end of 2008, we were averaging over 2000 bikes donated every year… And growing!