Executive Fight Night
Putting the fun into fundraising with an engaging, well-designed app
Custom Media has been a supporter of Shine On! Kids and Executive Fight Night (EFN) for many years. After a hiatus due to the pandemic, EFN X was held on May 27, 2022.
The charity event raises awareness and funds for the innovative Shine On! Kids Facility Dogs Program, which changes how children with cancer and other diseases and their families approach medical treatment and therapy—and improves outcomes—through Japan’s first, full-time Animal Assisted Therapy program at children’s hospitals.
To complement the website we made for EFN, drive ticket sales and raise funds, we innovated a web browser app to check-in black-tie guests and let them view bouts and play a fun betting game with all funds raised going to charity.
All deliverables were completed on schedule, and the live test of the betting game was highly successful. On the day of the event, the website handled more than 500 site visits and we successfully checked in 300 people in 45 minutes.
We did thorough research on the seamless experience guests would expect at a black-tie evening, which included quick access to the app; loading times without any glitches as 300+ people accessed it at the same time and in the same room; payment processing, and the overall gaming experience with no room for error.
With detailed insights from the research, we were able to design the app anticipating various scenarios and building solutions that addressed them such as ensuring we could handle multiple payment transactions at the same time; synchronizing the start and stop of the betting to coincide the fights; delivering up-to-date top donors’ leaderboard statuses that were shown on the big screen at the event to drive more donations and create an overall fun competitive atmosphere, while delivering a flawless gaming experience to guests on the night.
Challenges
We had not anticipated a situation where a guest paid to top up their spouse’s gaming account, but we are able to quickly fix this by creating an overriding admin update to the account, so the gamers were able to get set up without any delays.
Innovation
Previously, the entire gaming workflow was done manually at the tables; as a result, the funds raised were low as was the general awareness of the fighters. By delivering an innovative digital solution, we were able to raise significantly higher donations, improve the organizers’ workflow, and give guests a fun evening.
We needed to ensure branding and communications were on point and the overall experience to donate for a worthy cause was positive. We successfully achieved that as guests quickly understood how the system worked and they started donating.
The 2022 event had to be scaled down by 100 guests due to the venue’s Covid restrictions. Our return-on-objective was to deliver at least the same amount in funds raised from the game compared to the 2019 event, which was ¥4.4 million. We hit ¥6.2 million. In terms of return-on-investment, the entire event had to raise more funds compared with the previous years and that too with a smaller audience: our app definitely contributed to that goal.
Custom Media helped us to put the 'fun' into fundraising through the awesome app they designed for us! They understood our goals, our guests and created exactly what was needed to not only do the job, but to help us raise record amounts at our event.