Posted on December 11, 2024
On 1 October 2024, the University of Pretoria’s (UP) honours marketing students partnered with The Little Optimist Trust to launch the The Great Optimist Challenge (TGOC), a fundraising initiative that raised an impressive R41 276 for marginalised children.
The Little Optimist Trust is a non-profit organisation formed through the heartfelt story of Greg Bertish, who endured 200 days in hospital and underwent two open heart surgeries due to an undiagnosed Tropical Bacteria that attacked his heart valves. Using his life-changing experiences, Bertish created the story of The Little Optimist, a tiny boat with a huge heart, that inspires children to do good and never give up. The Trust aims to empower marginalised children to build resilience despite life's challenges, with their motto being ‘LITTLE people can do HUGE things’. The Trust is engaged in various initiatives, some of which include hospital visits, Easter and Christmas drives, as well as renovating and painting under resourced health and education facilities all over South Africa. They also offer sailing therapy through their established Sailing Academyas a means to facilitate healing (both mental and physical), as well as to enhance well-being and quality of life.
Annually, the Trust hosts The Great Optimist Race (TGOR), a boat race at the Cape Town International Boat Show to raise awareness and funds for the race. This has been one of their biggest fundraising events, though participation in the actual boat race is naturally limited. This year, Bertish and his team came up with an exciting extension of the challenge to foster diversity and inclusivity. This initiative invited individuals of all ages to design their own challenges—anywhere and in any way—making it accessible to everyone. This led to the launch of the TGOC.
As part of a community engagement project for the Marketing in Practice Module, the students took on a real-life challenge with a powerful purpose. The project was coordinated by Dr Bianca Frost and Dr Jade Verbeek , lecturers responsible for the module within the Department of Marketing Management in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at UP.
The honours marketing students were entrusted to launch the TGOC project, beginning with the creation of compelling video content to promote the overall challenge. Working in groups, they designed their own challenge and set realistic objectives and fundraising targets. They developed their promotional online content, relying solely on organic, engaging and strategic content to drive success with no paid advertising strategies. Each group presented their campaign concepts and promotional materials to The Little Optimist team and their lecturers for feedback before implementation.
Themes of optimism and hope were central to their efforts, allowing their creativity and innovative thinking to shine in every aspect of the project. From “Showers of Hope” and “Splashes for Support” to “Grooving for a Cause”, “Optimistically Hiking” and rocking “Funky Socks” (proven mood boosters!), they brought smiles and awareness to all stakeholders. Their ideas, including the “Optimoji Challenge”, “Breaking through the Blues” and “Keeping Hope Afloat” (on floaties), exemplified how marketing can be both meaningful and fun. One team had “All hands on deck” to construct floating devices, and another team was out there “Making Waves”.
Some examples of the student campaigns on social media
Before launching their campaigns, each team set up their respective fundraising platforms with the assistance of BackaBuddy, one of Africa’s largest crowdfunding platforms. The students implemented their campaign between 1 and 18 October 2024, and collectively raised an impressive R41 276 for The Little Optimist Trust insupport of marginalised children.
Team Socktomists, Charné van der Merwe, Colette Fourie, Ruth Burger, Nicole Wallis, and Jason McKean were awarded the best strategic and practically implementable plan. The team—united the community with their creative challenge, encouraging people to show their support by wearing funky socks at any time, from any place, to raise awareness and donations for the cause. The Make Waves Team, which included Alexandra Marques, Carmen Horne, Elize Coetzee, Jana Dreyer, and Chloe Dippenaar raised an incredible R13,200—the highest amount contributed.
“Through hands-on learning and practical implementation, the students engaged in transformational learning experiences as many came to realise that they can use their marketing skills to make a real-world impact. Congratulations to the students for showing us that no challenge is too great when purpose drives passion.,” said Drs Frost and Verbreek.
Both lecturers expressed their gratitude to Cara de Vogel and Bertish for their invaluable support and feedback to the students, as well as for inspiring marketing students to effect positive change in society.
Greg Bertish, founder of The Little Optimist Trust, and Bianca Frost at the Little Optimist Sailing Academy, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town
To view more of the students’ campaigns on social media visit #TheGreatOptimistChallenge and to view their fundraising campaigns on BackaBuddy, please visit this link: https://www.backabuddy.co.za/organization/the-great-optimist-challenge
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