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Month: August 2019

Charity Team Building Leads the Way

One of the most popular team building event categories over the past ten years has been CSR-driven charity team building. Companies are always looking for ways to give back to the community, all while inspiring and bonding their team.

We offer a line up of 20 charitable team-building programs all which address your team’s desired goals. CSR programs are fun, impactful, and fulfilling and focus on teamwork, trust, and communication that result in a significant donation the people in need.

Our needs assessment tailors your charitable team building event to achieve goals by customizing your program to fit your group’s size and allotted time.

Giving back has never been this fun and fulfilling! Over the years, Best Corporate Events has developed a great lineup of charitable team building events and has built long-lasting relationships with top local and national philanthropic organizations. Our Charitable Resource Manager works closely with the nonprofit organizations and uses her expertise to manage the distribution of the donated items.

Our corporate charity events can be delivered anywhere in North America. They feature group bonding activities designed to boost team spirit while helping less fortunate members of your community.

Our Charitable programs include team building activities, games, trivia, and photo & video challenges delivered on iPads we provide.

The points received during the competition are used towards earning the items which will be donated to the local and national charities. Corporate charity events lead the way in team building.

Each of our CSR programs benefits those in need and can include the following to name a few:

Overseas soldiers
Kids with cancer
Homeless men, women, and families
Disabled veterans
Foster children
Senior citizens
Alzheimer’s patients
Underfunded schools
The physically challenged
Children’s music programs
Food for soup kitchens and food banks

We have designed and trademarked some of the top charity team building events in the industry, including:

Bike Build Donation®
Donation Nation™
Build-a-Guitar®
Helping the Homeless
We Care For Schools
Build-a-Wheelchair®
Bears and Blankets
Donation Nation™
Project Alzheimer’s
STEM Backpacks for Kids
Build-a-Rollator™
Minute 2 Win It for Charity
Fostering Hope™
Build-a-Green Machine
Locate & Donate SmartHunt®
Kids Rock!™
Operation Toy Donation
Charity Game Show
Mini-Golf Build & Food Donation
Operation Military Care

Everything from the production, coordination, and facilitation of our programs are of utmost importance to us. In an effort to deliver the donated items in a timely manner, the purchasing, warehousing, and shipping of the items are crucial for a successful program. Our Charitable Resource Manager works closely with the most reputable charitable organizations across America to donate the items to those most in need.

One of our charitable partners has the amazing ability to not only ship our Military Care Packages to servicemen and women overseas but has a system of identifying which soldiers receive little or no mail from home. When Bike Build Donation originally evolved, it was our goal to build bikes to children in after-school programs who had never owned a bicycle before. Our nonprofit partners went even further by identifying students who had excelled in their after-school programs as well and rewarding them with a bicycle.

Mini-Golf Build & Food Donation program is an extremely fun, fast-paced, charity team building event where each team designs a golf hole. After each team designs and builds their hole, all participants get the opportunity to play each hole competing for the gold medals. The twist is that each hole is to built using canned and boxed goods.

After the event, all the canned and boxed goods are packed up and donated to a local soup kitchen or food bank. Our largest food donation to date was from a group who donated 6,000 pounds of food to the Las Vegas Rescue Mission. Here is what their coordinator wrote to our client.

“When the 6,000 pounds of food was donated, the director pulled me aside and said, ‘We had a meeting 3 weeks ago and came to the tough realization that this fall we would not have enough food to feed all the needy families of Las Vegas in our neediest time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In one amazing effort, you guys have solved that problem. Thank you!” Joseph – Las Vegas Rescue Mission

Best Corporate Events can deliver Charity team building programs to very large groups because of the event apps we’ve developed and the hundreds of iPads we have in our nationwide system. Our reputation precedes us and companies know we are the go-to company for large group team building. By adding our iPads and proprietary apps in 2010, the sky is the limit. Best Corporate Events is the largest, nationwide, high-tech, charitable team building company in America. We are also the highest-rated Event Organizers in the nation with a customer TrustScore of 9.9/10.

The most popular CSR event is still a Bike Build Donation® program. We’ve delivered more bike builds, to groups with 25 to 3,500 participants, than any company in America. We’ve also delivered the largest Bike Build Donation on record.

In 2018, Lowe’s called upon us to deliver the largest Bike Build Donation in history. Over 3,500 Lowe’s managers from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and seven-time NASCAR Champion Jimmie Johnson set a World record in Las Vegas by building and donating 1,048 bikes to deserving kids. Best Corporate Events was managing every detail of the event from start to finish.

“It was a great day for the 3,500 Lowe’s managers that participated in the Bike Build Donation event at the Sands Expo and Conference Center in Las Vegas. They set a World Record by building and donating 1,048 girls and boys bicycles, helmets, and locks to deserving children from Boys and Girls Clubs throughout the state of Nevada.” Dave – Lowe’s

Our second most popular corporate charity event is our Build-a-Wheelchair®. When Dell bought EMC in October of 2016 for $67 billion dollars, they celebrated the largest deal in tech history with our Build-a-Wheelchair charity team building event. It was delivered to over 4,000 of their employees located in Southborough, Massachusetts, Austin, Texas, Cork, Ireland, and Bangalore, India.

“It has been quite a while since I first contacted your sales department to ask about what we might work on together for Dell’s merger with EMC… phew! We’ve covered a lot of ground in the meantime with four big programs, in three countries, enabling us to build a total of over 800 wheelchairs for donation. A BIG thank you for everything that we managed to achieve. Your Build-a-Wheelchair events were a HUGE hit for us all here.”MATT – Dell Global Communications

Other large charitable team building events include a We Care for Schools program with 1,900 employees at Novo Nordisk, a Locate & Donate SmartHunt® for 1,450 employees at Siemens Medical, a Donation Nation event for 900 people, an Operation Military Care program for 900 people for Allied PRA, and a Build-a-Guitar® event for 800 employees at Beacon.

These activities give companies something more productive and fulfilling to do during a large multiday company meeting besides the normal dinner or simple party. They can have fun and bond their team, and give back to the community, all at the same time!

These are the perfect recession-proof events for corporate America for the team building and for the philanthropy. During downtimes, it is critical to keep your team focused, motivated, and united. They will be anxious and need to know their teammates and their employers have their backs. Companies need to understand that during times like this, team building is of utmost importance, especially if they are downsizing or reorganizing the company. Also important is give back to the community during downtimes, which makes our dual-purpose charity team building events the perfect solution.

Our CSR programs give companies something more productive and fulfilling to do during a large multiday company meeting than a simple dinner or party. They can have fun and bond with their team while giving back to the community, all at the same time!

Best Corporate Events has delivered charitable team building programs to thousands of small to large companies and we would love to design and deliver a charitable event for your team. Corporate social responsibility has never been more fun! Contact us to learn how we can help your team bond while giving back to the community!

Back To School – Your Company Can Help

Students across the nation are preparing for their first day back to school. The start of a new school year is exciting and kids love getting their new clothes, backpacks, and lunch box ready. Getting ready for back to school is a huge financial responsibility for the parents. Thankfully a majority of counties offer Back to School sales and tax-free shopping days.

Even with the advantages of special sales and discounts, both parents and teachers alike have difficulties with being able to afford the costs of school items. Not every family is capable of providing their children with the items they need for the new school year. Not all teachers are provided the resources they need for a successful year and have to buy their own supplies out of pocket. Unfortunately, it is not fair to everyone and makes for a stressful start. The list of school supplies that is sent home with your child can sometimes be overwhelming. It’s not just notebooks and pencils anymore! Now it can consist of binders, folders, crayons, markers, glue, scissors, and calculators.

Check out these numbers!

Based on a recent survey, parents of elementary age to high school-age children will spend nearly $700, amounting in almost $30 billion in all, according to the National Retail Federation.

Families aren’t the only ones that struggle though; teachers are also confronted with their own set of challenges. They deal with budget cuts and lack of school funding, and at times this leaves them no choice but to spend their own money to be able to provide their students with everything that they need to succeed in the school year.

According to an article in The New York Times, a shocking “94 percent of public school teachers in the United States reported paying for supplies without reimbursement in the school year that straddled 2014 and 2015.” From out of their own pocket these teachers spent nearly $500 to over $1,000. The article also noted that the percentage did not differentiate from where the schools were located, nor the financial situations of the students.

Sadly this isn’t anything new, and this is an ongoing problem that seems to have no end in sight. There are ways that both families and teachers have found to make it through each school year, be it through donation programs or fundraisers.

Your company and BEST can help

If you are looking for a way your company can help, BEST offers a variety of team building programs to do just that. Want the members of your company be able to give back to this worthy cause? Your group will love one of our team building programs that benefit children and schools. Our We Care for Schools™, Build-a-Guitar®, and Kids Rock!™ are just three of our CSR, charitable programs which benefit local schools. These three corporate donation programs cater to schools and children in need and are an excellent way to have your group show their appreciation for educational providers, students, and administrators. Our Charitable Resource Manager will work closely with your meeting planner to research items needed and which schools or non-profits could benefit in your area. We love to customize programs, so if you have a specific item in mind, we could incorporate this into your program. All the items built will be donated to a local children’s organization, charity or school.

Our newest CSR program benefiting students is STEM Kits for Kids. STEM Backpacks for Kids is a heart-warming, charitable, team-building program devoted to promoting and emphasizing the importance of education in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

The program begins with a fun, high-energy icebreaker that will have your group laughing, celebrating, bonding, and readying themselves for the fun and rewarding experience ahead. Teams will engage in a series of activities and challenges to earn visits to the STEM store to find items for inclusion in the student backpacks.

The purpose of the STEM Backpacks for Kids donation is to give children, ages 5 to 10 years old, items that will spark their curiosity for learning and experimentation while gaining an understanding of the importance of STEM to their future success. In recent years, it has become popular to include Arts in the line-up resulting in the new acronym STE(A)M for this group of subjects.

What is Team Building

Team building has been around since the beginning of civilization in one form or another. Officially, corporate team building can be traced back to the 1920s and ’30s with what is now known as the Hawthorne Studies. Researchers studied what happened when a group of employees worked on activities together. The most relevant results, as proven by these studies, were the groups’ sense of identity and feeling of cohesiveness from working together. Often team building is utilized when a corporate team suffers or has conflict. Although team building is an excellent exercise for improving role confusion and poor communication, we do not want companies to forget that team building can also be a rewarding experience.

Even the strongest teams can benefit from these team building ideas. Corporate groups can build effective relationships while finding solutions to office conflicts, as well as set goals to drive the company to new levels of success. When you decide to host a team-building activity, it tells your team you care about their success.

During team building activities, your employees will grow and learn new skills they can bring back to the company. People will be more motivated when they can take pride in their performance. Once a stronger trust has been built amongst teammates, everyone will enjoy coming to work more each day. The effectiveness of team building differs from one organization to another. One commonality is that all members of the team must understand the objectives they face when going into the activity. Once the team’s goals are set, and roles are assigned, teams can work together to achieve great results. Conducting a needs assessment before a specific team building program or activity is decided upon is always essential to its success. The needs assessment identifies the group’s goals and desired outcomes so the program can be structured to address them.

When team members can trust each other and learn to communicate more effectively, they can easily share ideas and collaborate. Team building helps those who might not typically be engaged to interact with each other. It teaches people to work together, thus increasing productivity. Finding ways to utilize each person’s skills and then transferring it to a work project, results in more efficient work and satisfaction from the team overall. Corporate Team Building has become more critical than ever in this growing, fast-paced, high-tech age of electronic social interaction.

Employees used to work together in business physically, but now we live in an age of remote offices, email, texting, and video-conferencing. So, face-to-face, in-person human interaction among the members of your team in the form of team building programs and activities is more important than ever before. Now that you’ve learned some of the positive, professional, and human reasons why team building is so important for your team, let us not forget to tell you about all the FUN reasons!

About Best Corporate Events

Best Corporate Events is the largest corporate team building company in America – created by the merger of top companies in the fields of Team Building events, Professional Development, Interactive Entertainment, and Event Technology. We’ve designed and trademarked many of the most popular corporate team building programs in our industry including Competition to Collaboration®, Total Recall, Build-a-Wheelchair®, Bridge to the Future™, Bike Build Donation®, SmartHunts®, Build-a-Guitar®, and our Igniting Team Performance™ series. Your team will love the high-tech team building activities we’ve created using iPads® we provide, all running event apps we’ve developed. Our experience and proprietary technology also allow us to deliver highly successful team building events with hundreds to thousands of participants. Our needs assessment helps us to tailor your team building activities to achieve your company’s goals. We can customize the program to fit your group’s size, goals, and allotted time. Best Corporate Events has delivered corporate team building activities to thousands of small to large companies with 30 to over 6,000 participants. Our corporate team building activities are designed to: Enhance individual and team growth, Improve stronger connections within the team, Strengthen your teams bond, trust, and communication, Solidify the cohesiveness of your team members, and provide key insights and applicable skill sets amongst your teammates. Here are some of our recommended team building ideas for bringing your team together.

Professional development

In addition to offering core programs including MBTI, DiSC Profile, Emotional Intelligence Training, Meeting and Time Management, and Presentation Skills, we offer our performance series.

Our Igniting Tem Performance series is perfect for any group level. If you’re a newly formed group, our level 1 program is a great way to increase collaboration and bond your new team. If we have an existing group, level 2 activities will highlight the benefits of team building with takeaways for immediate workplace application.

If you are already a well-oiled machine, your team can still benefit from challenging initiatives that test your group’s goal setting, time and meeting management, communication, and leadership skills. The best part is that even a level-1 team can become a level-3 team with this series of high-performance team challenges!

Charitable Team Building

Over the years, Best Corporate Events has developed a great lineup of over 20 different CSR programs to benefit a wide variety of our fellow Americans. We have also built a network of long-lasting relations with top philanthropic organizations across the country that help distribute the items built and assembled at these fantastic CSR events. Our CSR programs can be delivered anywhere in North America and feature group bonding activities designed to boost team spirit and unity while helping less fortunate members of your community.

These uplifting events include corporate team building activities, games, and challenges resulting in the creation of items for donation to local and national charities. The items are donated for the benefit of overseas soldiers, schools, the homeless, children, the elderly, and Alzheimer’s patients – to name a few.

We deliver CSR programs for corporate groups of 30 or more and also have set world records delivering some of the largest charitable giveback programs. These world records include a Build-a-Wheelchair for 4,000 employees of Dell and a Bike Build Donation® for 3,400 managers from Lowe’s who built and donated 1,048 bicycles in Las Vegas to benefit Boys and Girls Clubs throughout Nevada.

Game Shows

Our Survey Says Game Show is our fast-paced rounds of survey questions written explicitly for corporate groups. Companies can even add some of their own questions to the mix! Winning “teams” move forward to the semi-finals and hopefully, the final round to vie for the gold medals we present to every member of the winning team.

Our unique game design keeps everyone involved throughout the show, regardless of your group size. No matter how many points are on the scoreboard, you can be confident that your participants will score big with this corporate version Survey Says!

Culinary

Our food-themed team building events are the most delicious! Each program is the perfect blend of good food, competition, and fun to encourage your group to work together as a team and enjoy each other’s company. We work seamlessly with your venue to arrange the food and the setting so that you can combine a fantastic meal with high-spirited, team bonding activities. The type of cuisines may vary, but these programs share a common mission – to build unity while breaking down barriers for better communication. Our events focus on interaction, which leads to happier and more productive team members in the workplace.

The kitchen has always been a place where friends and family like to congregate to socialize. Preparing food together can foster creativity and camaraderie, which makes cooking a perfect team building activity. Teams will enjoy a competitive format type event while collaborating and strengthening the cohesiveness of their team. As a result, this is a perfect opportunity to level the playing field. Everyone has an important role, and it will take each team member’s contribution to creating what is on the menu.

Choose a Chili Cook-off for teams to whip up their own Chili recipe. Or Liven things up with a Fiesta Fun™ or Tapas and Sangria making. Or choose our Food Truck Face-off where teams build a food truck, create a logo, decide on a menu, prepare the food all the entire group to enjoy.

SmartHunts

Looking for great corporate team building ideas? Why not try a high-tech scavenger hunt! SmartHunts® are fun, challenging, and hi-tech corporate scavenger hunts delivered on iPads® loaded with SmartHunts and Facilitator Apps.

Our proprietary Apps utilize text messaging, audio, video, FaceTime®, QR Codes, iMovie®, social media, and GPS tracking to produce the best hunts and team building activities ever! SmartHunts are a combination of sightseeing, gaming, laughter, and team building and can be delivered at any location in North America.

We give teams permission to have fun with a SmartHunt® that is customized for them and the area they wish to explore. Our final awards ceremony includes a live-feed slideshow from photos and videos shot by your teams during their adventure!

Small to Large Groups

Whatever your group size, from 30 people to 6,000, Best corporate Events can design and deliver a fun and impactful program for your team. We’ve developed event apps to leverage the technology and mobility needed in facilitating large team building programs. The apps we created helped us build cutting-edge programming that is new, fun, and impactful.

If you want a meaningful event for your group of 1,000 or more, you are no longer limited to shows and socials. You can bond your team with an interactive experience designed by the go-to experts for large corporate events. Best corporate events are team building at its best!

Welcome to the BEST blog, a collection of team building articles, industry insights and news about our large collection of programs and events offered in locations across North America.