#Bridge2Build

A few months ago, Konstelacio organized its first educational and charitable challenge in collaboration with Neoma Business School and Lokalero: the Bridge2Build project.

The 42 students enrolled in the Inclusive Entrepreneurship course at the Rouen and Reims campuses used Lokalero connected bracelets to collect donations so that Konstelacio could carry out the Ursino project. The concept is simple and effective: bracelets equipped with QR codes that link directly to the donation collection page. And since Konstelacio loves cooperation, they worked in teams and came up with innovative fundraising and communication strategies.

The Baghdad team demonstrated their creativity during this challenge and won the prize for the most innovative strategy. They granted us an interview.

Introduce yourself in a few lines.

team-baghdad-foodtruck

Part of the team at Cantine

  • Alexis Vernagallo, I completed a Bachelor's degree at BSB before coming to Neoma for a Master's degree. On the professional side, I recently worked at Unilever as an area manager.
  • Alexis Donati: I completed a bachelor's degree at ICN Business School in Nancy before coming to Neoma for my master's degree. I currently work as a business developer.
  • Furkan Celik: I am a customer service representative for a renovation company in the Strasbourg area.
  • Valerian Cuenin: I am a student entrepreneur and have created two projects: VP Agency, which aims to make digitalization accessible to all businesses.
    We also have a service entirely dedicated to aerial photography for anyone looking to boost their communication; andStudent Pass, a discount card for Lille and Reims giving students access to more than 250 immediate discounts.

  • Jean Glaser: I am a student at Neoma, and professionally, I have completed internships as a business analyst at consulting firms in Paris.

  • Valentin Turc: I did a bachelor's degree at EM Strasbourg before coming to Neoma for my master's degree. I am developing an app called Safe2Walk to reduce street assaults.

"In general, we are a very enterprising, very athletic group, and we are not afraid to try new things because failure is an important step on the road to success."

What did you think of this educational and charitable challenge?

food truck baghdad

Donation collection mission at Cantine

The challenge wasmotivatingforus. Selling a product is easy; the customer pays for a benefit, something in return. Here, we have to convince them to give money without getting anything in exchange, so we have to negotiate differently without playing on their pity.

This has been very useful to us, as we all work in sales and have had to develop ournegotiation skills.

How did you decide to proceed? Tell us about the strategy you implemented and why it worked.

"We initially assumed that we should look within our circle of friends and family... But then we realized that wasn't the goal, so we asked ourselves howwe could raisefunds from a different audience.

We thought of the model used by Restos du Cœur and Sidaction, whichpartner with stores and supermarketsandoffer customers the option to round up their total at the checkout. For example, if your basket totals €15.50, you can chooseto round it upto€16 on the payment terminal, meaning €0.50 will be donated to the charity.

That's how we set up our final year project called Cantine, offering people the chance to round up their bill while telling them about Lokalero and Konstelacio. It was a huge success, as we raised €30.

"We also thought of the PSG association, which organizes a training match between players before the foundation's gala. The losing team has to pay the prizes. Of course, they're millionaires, so it's not significant, but we thought that giving money so that others would give would be motivating.

So we played four 5-on-5 games at the LeFive complex in Reims with teams we found on social media. The deal was clear: the losing team had to donate €25 to the charity (€5 per person). The games were close every time, and the simple fact ofdonating to a charity was a source of motivation to win.

The result: €100 raised and four superb victories.

What did you learn about the world of associations through this experience?

"It'sdifficulttoraise money for an association. As we said, we don't sell anything, so even a donation of €10 won't get you anything material. So you have to get people interested in the project without playing on their pity, which is very difficult at first.

In addition, we raised the idea that volunteers must be extremelymotivatedbythe project in order to try to raise money. A salesperson, for example, is motivated by commission or by the approval of their managers, but this is not the case here, so we must aim to ensure that volunteers are well chosen from the outset to be motivated and a source of ideas without expecting any reward.

What makes the bracelets developed by lokalero innovative?

"It'sconvenientbecauseit allows you to redirect people directly to the donation page. However, we have found that it is not yet 100% effective.

There are 3 target cores:

  • Young people: who will understand how to scan the QR code, but who will not necessarily have the funds necessary to make a donation.
  • Adults who have more money, who are not necessarily technology users but who will prefer to use PayPal because it is safer or give cash.
  • Older people who are unable to scan the QR code.

Several elements would need to be provided: a QR code that opens directly on PayPal would allow donations to be made in 20 seconds instead of the current 5 minutes, and a public collection box would allow cash donations to be collected from elderly people in particular.

A partnership with a shopping mall or a large group would also generate significant revenue and would be beneficial to the adult target audience.

What advice would you give to volunteers who want to get involved in this type of collection?

"Go for it,take risksbecausethat's what will work. Try everything until you find the best connection. You have toprioritize human contact; people don't give via social media like that. On Twitch, for example, we can see that communities are created solely online, but this remains very rare. You have toprioritize physical encountersatmarkets, in cities, etc.

A partnership with a shopping mall or a large group would also generate significant revenue and would be beneficial to the adult target audience.

What did this experience bring you professionally and personally? What will you take away from this experience?

"One of the most important weapons in this kind of challenge is patience, waiting for the right moment to talk about the association, its projects, and the added value of donations. That's what we'll remember. We've all made progress in negotiation because we discovered patience, which will be very useful in our future sales experiences."

What do you think about the role that business schools have to play in the social and solidarity economy and the non-profit sector?

Business schools traintomorrow's leaders,andwe say this without condescension. We believe that the best way for associations to build a community is to engage with these young people. The proof is in the amount of donations collected through our promotion, which shows that schools play an important role in the community life of our country.

What's more, with the number of associations we have on campus, it's really part ofNeoma's DNA."