a fundraiser for food access.
Role: Fundraising Coordinator, Branding & Marketing
Branding
The Secret Ingredient Competition Kitchen was a fundraiser benefitting the Southern Illinois Collaborative Kitchen, a non-profit that partners with local growers and restaurants to create meals for a pay-what-you-can meal distribution.
When it came to the branding, I wanted it to feel gamified and also firmly rooted in the organization that it was benefitting. I utilized brand colors while creating new visuals that were distinct but could live in the same ecosystem. Even the name "Secret Ingredient Competition Kitchen" was a cheeky nudge to the long-winded title of the organization, we used the tagline "it's a mouthful!" to draw further attention to the long title. The title also utilized the same acronym as Southern Illinois Collaborative Kithen to help echo the connection.
Coordination
The Secret Ingredient Competition Kitchen was one of my favorite fundraising events. I wanted to create a peer-to-peer fundraiser with a focus on food. I devised a "Chopped" styled cooking competition game that blended fundraising by competition participants and live judging event.
The fundraiser was comprised of two distinct sections, the participant fundraising and competition day. Four weeks before the competition, participants began battling it out in fundraising challenges to win boosts and avoid extra obstacles on competition day.
The Main aspect of the event was the competition day. The competition was a whole day event. Participants began the day by picking up their mystery basket of ingredients. Participants would need to make 3 courses with a required mystery ingredient used in each course.
After pick up, they devised their cooking plan and made shopping runs. Then participants went to their self-procured cooking locations and got to work.
Participants would send in photos and video updates of the cooking process throughout the day. We gave participants a guideline for what content to make and how often to send it in. Content was posted on social media through organization accounts as well as participant accounts. A designated social media poster was in charge of making sure content flowed throughout the day.
At 6:00 PM, all participants arrived to the judging event. The event was attended by a live audience as well as live-streamed to home audiences. The event hosted 3 prominent culinary experts, local to the community, that acted as competition judges. The courses were evaluated in rounds with judges giving individual feedback and awarding winners after each round.
Mystery Basket Reveal
We created lots of little win moments, allowing more participants feel the pay off of their hard work. We had winners for each round as well as an overall winner for the entire competition. Additionally, we awarded the participant that raised the most funds for the event.
The event was a huge success hitting fundraising goals and sponsorship goals. It also acted as a really important tool for organization outreach. Multiple participants became directly involved in the organization after initiation through the Competition Kitchen.
Competition Kitchen raised money through peer-to-peer fundraising, live event donations and ticket sales, and sponsorships. It was designed to be scalable and grow in sponsorships and participation.
Participant Updates
