the

GUMBALL guide for TEAMS

question:

how can we make a sus-tainable dif-ference?

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You get a $27 loan and 27 gumballs.

You come up with a 1-week entrepreneurial venture using the $27 (and the gumballs, if you feel so inclined) and turn your loan mon-ey into more money.

You send your money back to the Gumball Fund, which reinvests your profits in the pov-erty alleviation organization of your choice.

gumball challenge executive summary

table of contents

Gumball Capital Overview 6

Story of the Gumball 8

General Info About Participation 10

Detailed Guide to the Challenge 11

Un-intimidating Business Plan 13

Expectations 14

Design Thinking 15

Brainstorming 16

Prizes 17

Where Can You Reinvest? 18

Sample Write-Up 20

gumball capital:+ engages young people in entrepreneurship + provides entrepreneurs an opportunity to ap-ply their skills to social good + raises money for poverty alleviation through entrepreneurial ventures

With Gumball Capital’s Gumball Challenge…

1. You get 1 week, $27, 27 gumballs to flex your entre-preneurial muscles for a good cause.

2, You personally experience microfinance: you are given a small loan, and make money to give other small loans to people who have limited access to start-up capital to grow their businesses and enhance their communities.

3. You become a member of an international 50+ school network of entrepreneurs that has raised over $28,000 for poverty alleviation.

gumball manifestoBlow bubbles Succeed by having fun and being yourself: ener-getic, young, intent on spreading excitement about entrepre-neurship and poverty alleviation.

Celebrate every quarter Appreciate contributions of any kind, ac-tively. Everyone’s busy; metaphorical quarters mean a lot. It’s 25 cents extra, not 75 cents short.

Break the glass Risk it. Don’t wait for permission to try something new. Err on the side of action. Caveat: don’t be unethical.

Flatten spheres into circles Minimize hierarchy. Eliminate unneces-sary restrictions. Use round tables. Communicate from the same plane, not a higher one.

Fit it on a Post-It Tighten it. Short attention spans! Break sparingly.

Share some sugar Recognize the power of stories and symbols. Mohammed Yunus lent $27 to 42 women in 1976. We’ve raised $28,000 in 3 years. Stories inspire!

Pop the ego Realize we’re only 1” in diameter. Microfinance isn’t a panacea. We don’t think of ourselves as changing the world. We’re just making it a bit chewier.

Remember to brush Stay fresh. Chewing gets tiring. Cavities hap-pen. Jaws dislocate. To prevent burnout, we leave everyone time for life.

the story of the gumballEnding poverty is like a gumball machine: helping one gumball out makes ev-eryone else closer to the exit.

Gumballs are flexible: they can be balls or they can be bubbles. The Chal-lenge turns creative, passionate stu-dents into entrepreneurs tackling the world’s toughest problems.

Entrepreneurship is like a gumball ma-chine: you need a little capital to get start-ed. You have to have a machine: a good team. You have to dispense gumballs without jams: the excellent execution of your idea. You have to have gumballs: a really, good, chewy idea that everyone loves and leaves people wanting more.

a brief history:Gumball Capital started in February 2007 at Stanford University by a stu-dent who happened to have 25,000 extra gumballs in his dorm room.

We figured out a way to raise money with gumballs and a little cash, and got to work. We incorporated over the summer of 2008 and created the Gumball Challenge, running the competition at five schools in 2008 and 2009. In 2009-10, we were rec-ognized in several competitions, re-ceived 501(c)3 tax-deductibility status, and ran the Challenge at 15 schools including a pilot of the Challenge at several high schools and one Chal-lenge in Beijing.

This year, we’re going for 50 schools and adding South America, Europe, and India to the list.

Find a team.

Brainstorm. Come up with an entrepreneurial venture with $27 start-up capital and one week to execute it. -How can you raise a lot of money? -How can you help your own community? -How can you teach others about social e? -Iterate. Do one event every day and use the early, small profits to do something bigger the next day. -Who are you going to raise money for?

Design your idea. Come up with concrete time-lines and goals.

Implement. Go out and do it!

so you want to be agumballer?

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PLANNING STAGE: 2 weeks before the challenge

Find a team of people you want to work with!Register online before your school’s information ses-sion.

INFO AND BRAINSTORM WEEK: 1 week BC

Go to the Info Session at your schoolHave your first brainstorm!Fill out the Gumball Challenge Proposal Form.Continue brainstorming throughout the week.Submit photos of your brainstorm to the GC website.The best brainstorm wins an extra $27 loan.

KICK-OFF: 1 day BC

Go to the kickoff and: Submit the Gumball Proposal Form to be eligible for your loan. Pick up your money. Give a 1-minute idea pitch. Upload.

CHALLENGE

Day 1: Hit the ground running. You’ve got 7 days. And $27. To do something big.

Day 2-6: Keep pushing. Iterate. If something doesn’t work, come up with something new. Take risks. Push boundaries. Get people to notice you. Update the website as much as possible. It helps you become more eligible for national prizes.

Day 7: Closing Ceremony During the half-hour before the closing ceremony, drop off your counted money. Give a short 3-5 minute presentation about your week. Video tape it and put it on the website! Create a 1-pg, pretty summary of your team’s activities to give to the coordinator. See what happens! Finish any website updates.

Last thing: Want to be in charge of the Challenge next year? Talk to your Gumball Coordinator, or email a Gumball Capital person. Got ideas? Send ‘em our way.

Really last thing: Go out. Change the world.

the un-intimidating business plan

Before jumping into Challenge Week, start chewing on juicy ideas! Be detailed if you can!

1. LIST 3 ideas that you could potentially implement this week.

2. What social problem/need will each idea address and how?

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PLANNING STAGE: 4-6 weeks BC

expectationsYou do the challenge.+ You’ll plan and implement a good Challenge and have fun!+ You’ll make contingency plans for if things go really well and contingency plans for if they don’t go well.+ You’ll promptly return your loan and your profits to your Coordinator, indicating where you would like them to be do-nated.+ Update the world on your Gumball shenanigans, with text, photo, and video updates on the Gumball website. Specifi-cally:+ Video 1 minute pitches at the Kick Off.+ Video final presentations at the Closing Ceremony.+ Send your Coordinator a 1 page, brochure-quality summary of your school’s challenge. + Follow the Gumball Manifesto. Have fun.+ Keep in touch with your Gumball Capital Coordinator.+ Think big. Go for crazy expectations.

Your coordinators and Gumball Capital help you do the challenge.+ Your Coordinators are there. Email them any time.+ Gumball Capital provides you the opportunity to try out en-trepreneurship in a low-risk setting.+ Gumball Capital lines up pretty awesome national prizes.+ Gumball Capital provides you with an online network of other Gumball entrepreneurs.

expectations

design thinkingThis will help the teams out, but it will also help you:

1 Ethnography: Talk to people. Find out what they need. How can you help your community?

Identify insights from the people you’ve talked to. De-fine a “need space.”2Brainstorm. How can you fill that need space?3Come up with a quick plan or model. Probe it and see if it works.4Refine– do more brainstorming and tightening! Set a timeline and defined goals.5Define your product (your plan for the week) and your story (why are you doing this?)6

Teams can submit evidence of each step of this pro-cess online to earn a Design Thinking badge, which counts towards national prize eligibility.

brainstorming

Ask a question: How might we […]?

Set a time limit.

Defer judgment. You’ll have plenty of time to critique lat-er. Right now, all ideas are a go.

Encourage wild ideas. Often, the craziest, most unwork-able ideas lead to the most innovate, feasible ones.

Build on others’ ideas. A triple layer cake is better than a one layer cake.

Stay focused on the topic. Save other stuff for your next brainstorm.

Be visual– draw, don’t write your ideas.

Focus on one conversation at a time. Focus. Focus.

Go for quantity. Get enough ideas out there, you’ll find The One.

Repeat! When you are done with your first brainstorm, pick an idea or subject and ask a new question, and do a new brainstorm.

Teams can submit photos of their brainstorm, display-ing their ideas, on the website to enter the brainstorm-ing competition. Winners win an extra $27 loan.

brainstorming

For the teams that really shine:competition categories

SCHOOL-LEVEL PRIZES:Most Money RaisedBest Microfinance AdvocateMost Innovative IdeaBiggest Risk TakerMost Sustainable Business Idea

NATIONAL PRIZES:Most EpicBiggest Microfinance AdvocateBiggest Social InnovatorMost Innovative IdeaBiggest Risk TakerMost Sustainable Business Idea

CHALLENGEwhere can you reinvest?

Here are some metrics to help you de-cide where to send your profits:

The profits of your Challenge entrepreneurship benefit others. Pick an institution that helps alleviate poverty or promote entrepreneurship in places that need it. Your energy and creativity will lift like-minded people out of the chains of poverty.

GRAMEEN FOUNDATIONhttp://www.grameemfoundation.orgIncreases access to microfi-nance and technology services in low-income communities. Grameen has helped generate about 1 million microloans and distributed $160 million to sup-port microfinance programs in 13 countries.

OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONALhttp://www.opportunity.orgProvides small business loans, savings, insurance and train-ing to over two million people working their way out of poverty in the developing world. Clients in more than 20 countries can use these services to expand a business, provide for their fami-lies, create jobs for their neigh-bors and build a safety net for the future.

where can you reinvest?

HEIFER INTERNATIONALhttp://www.heifer.orgStriving towards hunger allevia-tion by providing low-income families with animals, from which they can reap subsequent eco-nomic benefits. Heifer empha-sizes “passing on the gift,” shar-ing offspring or animal products with the community. Heifer has been named one of the most trustworthy non-profits.

KIVAhttp://www.kiva.orgEnables people to contribute online to microloans to en-trepreneurs across the world. Since 2005, Almost $2 million dollars have been lent to about 500,000 entrepreneurs in 57 countries.

WOKAIhttp://www.wokai.orgFocuses on China. Since its founding in 2007, Wokai has in-vested $300,000 through about 600 loans.

GUMBALL CAPITALhttp://www.gumballcapital.orgEmpowering young entrepre-neurs all over the globe and raising money to support micro-finance institutions. Donating to Gumball Capital helps spread the message of social entre-preneurship and poverty alle-viation. Your donation will help kick off a Challenge at anoth-er school, be reinvested back into Gumball Capital to help us grow, or invested in one of the above organizations through our Gumball fund.

We know people are passionate about different things and if you want to reinvest your profits at a great organization that works towards poverty alleviation, send us an email at info@gumballcapital.org and we’ll make sure it fits the mission!

CHALLENGE sample write-up

sample write-up question:

how can we change the

world?