Activate Your Community with Contests and Challenges: CommBuild Chat Recap

Using contests and challenges to engage communities was the topic of the July 17 edition of the weekly CommBuild chat. The chat, facilitated by by TechSoup online community manager, Michael DeLong, included helpful advice learned by participants who have run contests.

The chat participants drew on experiences from notable nonprofit challenges such as the TechSoup Digital Storytelling Challenge, Restart Romania, and Twive and Receive, among others.

Why Hold a Contest or Challenge?

Chat participants agreed that contests have these benefits:

• Generating excitement among your community for your organization and its mission
• Bringing out participation, especially by lurkers — the less vocal, sometimes new, members of your community
• Generating user-generated content for your organization’s use, such as photos, videos, etc.

What’s in It for Them?

Getting your community to enter requires making entry accessible and attainable. A low barrier of entry ensures greater participation from the community as a whole.

However, even if your challenge is easy to take part in, why should anyone participate?

The chance to win a prize is a big motivator; prizes can include:

• Exposure on your organization’s website or through social media. Public recognition is valuable and easy to give. Consider publicly recognizing not only winners but all participants.
• Award items branded with your organization’s name and logo are a great way for winners to show their support.
• Exclusive access: A behind-the-scenes look at the work your organization does or a chance to manage your organization’s social media offers a rare and valuable privilege. 

What’s Needed for Successful Contests

The single most important factor in hosting a challenge is taking the time to plan ahead. Planning ahead minimizes the chance that you will overlook something important. Make sure you:

• Get the right people on board. Build a support team within your organization and identify key partners and potential sponsors.
• Ensure you won't end up without any winners — Make certain that the criteria for entering are clear so you elicit the right type of participation. The criteria required for participation should also not be so high that they discourage anyone from entering.
• Comply with any and all applicable laws. Whether you are running a contest on the local or international level, know how the law impacts your contest. Some jurisdictions have laws that restrict purchases to enter raffles or levy tariffs on award items. Not knowing what laws affect your contest could result in an undue burden on contest winners and participants.
• Anticipate what to do if anyone cheats — Unfortunately, the chance to win can bring out the worst in some people. As one participant noted, it’s your contest and "you reserve the right to disqualify for any reason you deem necessary." Include in your contest rules what constitutes cheating and the consequences for cheating.
• Promote, promote, promote! Create a dedicated web page or microsite that includes contest instructions, prize information, and contact email or phone number. Make it shareable by using social media; use customized tracking links and strategic hashtags. Reach out directly to your biggest supporters and ask them to pass along word of your contest.
• Have a communications plan to handle questions or things going awry. Being unavailable when questions or problems arise can detract from the enthusiasm your contest was designed to create. You may not have all the answers but responding to people in a timely fashion will go a long way.

For the entirety of the CommBuild chat, visit the Storify story created of the conversation.