WHU Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge 2022

As part of the latest Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge (FLFC), the new MBA cohort raised € 71,203.68 for the humanitarian aid organization, Save the Children Deutschland e.V., in less than five days. The funds will be allocated to the organization’s Children’s Emergency Fund (CEF) to support children in need around the world. Since the inception of the FLFC in 2016, WHU’s MBA students have now raised close to € 600,000 for charitable projects.

The bi-annual FLFC traditionally marks the start of the MBA program at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. The highly intensive one-week leadership program is designed for incoming students to gain leadership skills and put them straight into practice, strengthen their team spirit, and develop a sense of social responsibility. In competing teams of four or five, the students must tackle different challenges and develop concepts to raise as much money as possible for a charitable cause in only five days.

Each day, the teams face a new challenge related to one of the core topics of the MBA curriculum, such as marketing, product development, strategy, or negotiation. The team leader changes daily to give every student the opportunity to lead. The teams are supported by experienced industry experts and guest speakers, as well as student mentors from more senior MBA intakes. At the end of each day, the teams present their results to an expert jury. Together with the other participants, the jury assesses the results, provides feedback, and declares one winning team.

This time, 110 Full-Time and Part-Time MBA students competed in 22 teams. The teams were divided into two cohorts to encourage coopetition: "Team Blue" was led by Dr. Jane Lê, Chairholder of Strategic Management. "Team White" was led by Dr. Pisitta Vongswasdi. "I was absolutely blown away by the level of energy, motivation, and commitment that these students bring to their first week and to the cause. The money they managed to raise this year speaks for itself! The competition between the teams was friendly but fierce. It was great to see how everyone was so open to the experience and willing to learn from the challenge," Vongswasdi remarks.

At the end of the week, one team was chosen from each cohort as the overall winner: Team "Kidspective" won for the “Blues”, alongside Team "FUNdraisers" for the “Whites”. As Jasper Shijun from FUNdraisers reflects, "The key learning is about setting clear strategies within a very limited time frame: not only strategies for ideas, branding, marketing, sales, and pitching, but also—more importantly—the strategy of leading a team by observing the strengths and characters of the different team members. The magic happens when team members use their strengths and support each other on their weaknesses".

The power of teamwork was also a huge takeaway for Ines do Carmo Gil Goncalves: "Winning the Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge was extremely rewarding. The FLFC felt intense and challenging in the initial days, but we could identify our individual strengths and combine them to deliver excellent performance throughout the week. It was inspiring to grow as a team and to learn together how to be a responsible leader who is part of a group. The most challenging part for us was to engage people to donate. However, as a team, we overcame the challenge and raised awareness of the crises affecting millions of children worldwide by stimulating a sense of social responsibility and accountability in others. It was beautiful."

More information on the WHU MBA programs can be found here.