Campaign Central

Play the Community Impact Game

One way to show your colleagues the value of Triangle United Way's Community Care Fund is to play the Make An Impact Game. This fun activity can be facilitated by you or your United Way representative. Below is a description of the exercise and instructions for implementing this game into your meetings to demonstrate the value of the Community Care Fund.

What you'll need to play:

  • Download Game Slides
  • Download Play Money*
  • Print the 12 pages and print and cut out the fake $200 bills. Each participant should have a bill.
  • Tape the slides to the back of the chairs in the room where you will be playing the game.

Game rules: 

  • Tell participants that they have one $200 bill that they can donate to one of the twelve individuals they see on the posters. 
  • They can only choose one to support and they cannot split the bill or put their bill on more than one person. 
  • Once everyone has placed their bill on a poster, they can return to their seat. From here you can look at the posters and see who did or did not "receive help" based on which posters have dollar bills and those that do not. 
  • Ask a few random people in the room to share with the group 1) who they chose to help and 2) would they have helped them all If they could.
  • Now hold up the "Community Care Fund" poster and tell them that they could have helped all of them if they had given to the Community Care Fund.

Key lessons from this exercise:

  • The Community Care Fund is the only way to support the safety net of services in our community. In this example, one gift would have helped many.
  • Many times people need services from more than one agency. While the battered wife may have needed a shelter to stay, she may have also needed personal counseling, counseling for her children and childcare.
  • It's difficult to decide who should receive funds. United Way volunteers serve on the Councils that distribute the money raised in the Community Care Fund. They serve for several years and the review of agencies and programs takes months because it is so in-depth. They still have to make tough program funding decisions, however understanding the gaps in human services across Durham, Orange and Wake counties helps.
  • While some of these needs are immediate and emergency type needs, others are preventive services, which are just as important. The Community Care Fund supports all types of needs that are all very important to our community.