For the fifth time this year, the Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge marked the start of the MBA program at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management. Due to the current situation, the project was quickly converted to a virtual format and even more successful than in some of the previous years: 16,166.16 € were handed over to Welthungerhilfe.
What is the Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge?
The Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge is a one-week leadership course designed to make leadership competence tangible in a practical way. It is also meant to instill in the students a lasting sense of leaders’ social responsibility beyond their organizations. In addition, the course offers a preview of the topics covered during the MBA program, it is suitable for the students getting to know each other and promotes team spirit. In groups of four to five people, the participants face a new challenge every day, covering various central teaching contents of the MBA program, from product development, marketing, strategy and negotiation to logistics, and product sales. The time pressure, the competition with the other groups as well as the daily changing team leader provide additional difficulties. In the course of the week, every student is given the opportunity to demonstrate his or her leadership skills. Each morning, the students receive input from a designated expert on the respective challenge topic. At the end of the day, a panel of experts evaluates the students' performance and chooses a winner. Both the innovative concepts developed during the week and the donations generated benefit children‘s rights organizations, which provides a real incentive for the students. Since the introduction of the Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge in April 2016, a total of around 300,000 euros in donations have been collected.
What was the biggest challenge this year?
This year, 41 participants from 20 different nations participated in the challenge, which not only had to be implemented digitally, but also planned accordingly. Spread over a total of eleven countries and three continents, the new MBA intake faced an additional obstacle by having to coordinate their collaboration across eleven different time zones. Despite the initial skepticism among the students, everyone quickly got used to digital communication, as MBA student Justus Hagebölling reports: "It is fascinating how the different groups develop their own team dynamics, even though they are spread across the world. Despite the distance, it feels as if we are all sitting in the same room and working hand in hand on the daily projects". MBA student Hadeel Almuzayan adds, "It's wonderful to see all the creativity, positivity, and energy merged on one screen."
How successful were the future leaders?
Nine different projects were completed within the given week. Professor Dr. Jane Lê, Chairholder of Strategic Management, is impressed: "The outcomes are fantastic, they outperform some of the cohorts of the previous years, which were not confronted with the digital challenges, time delays, and coronavirus limitations".
Who receives the donations?
This year's donations will go to Welthungerhilfe's Corona Prevention Project (FLFC Corona Prevention: Hygiene and Sanitation for People in need), which improves hygienic equipment in developing countries and provides education to counter the spread of the pandemic.
More information on the Future Leaders Fundraising Challenge
More information on Welthungerhilfe's Corona Prevention Project