Summary
Cook for a Smile is designed to involve corporate heads and influential people to come forward and make a difference in the lives of 5.000 underprivileged children. The participants come together to cook a signature dish with ingredients supplied by and under the supervision of four times Michelin-starred Chef Vikas Khanna (of Restaurant Junoon, Dubai, fame) and helped by children from the Smile programmes. They each have 30 minutes. Afterwards the Chef and the children taste and judge the dishes.
Tips and lessons learned
Learnings :
1. It can be a multi-city fundraiser with a huge potential to scale up.
2. It needs at least 2 months of marketing.
3. This is a good way to start a relationship with a new corporate - invite their top boardroom leaders as a participant to the event.
Challenges :
1. Dependency on the timelines of Chef Vikas Khanna as he is the face of the campaign. Smile is trying to get dates at least 3 months in advance for other events to ensure better fundraising.
2. Keeping the momentum high with each event by setting challenges for all participants in terms of surprise ingredients, lucky draws and experience auction with Chef Vikas Khanna and his Michelin-starred restaurant in Dubai.
Review by Wilde Ganzen Foundation
This is a good fundraising and branding event. It has great potential, especially if you manage to secure the co-operation of a famous ambassador. The participants pay a participation fee. Moreover there is a good chance of corporate and individual donations.
Details
Objectives
The main objective is to involve more corporates and potential individuals in the work of Smile and raise funds for a particular Smile programme.
Targeted donors
Top boardroom leaders and corporates from the food and beverage industry.
Results
| Cost/benefit |
National currency (INR |
Euro |
| Total amount raised |
1,545,000 |
19,313 |
| (-) Total amount invested |
900,000 |
11,250 |
| Net amount raised |
645,000 |
8,063 |
Description of preparatory work
Chef Vikas Khanna joining as a goodwill ambassador and a face of Cook for a Smile.
Smile reached out to corporates and individuals to contribute to the cause.
Getting right hospitality and a telecast partner are important associations too.
Getting the best boardroom leaders to come forward and support the initiative.
Description of implementation
Creating a microsite and mailers to attract more audience to the event.
Targeting the right corporate and leaders to support the initiative.
Asking all participants to submit their picture , profile and recipe at least 10 days in advance of the event.
Post event communicating the impact to all participants.
Disseminating the telecast of the show on the channel to the right audience.
Buying database to disseminate the impact and telecast time to the right audience.
Follow up: Donor appreciation and acknowledgement
Following the event Smile sent a thank you mail to all participants and a separate one on other association opportunities with Smile. Sharing an event report and adding all the data from each event into a mass mailing list was also part of the work to be done after the event took place.
Plans to repeat the action
This is an event that can be repeated easily.
