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Winner Takes All Challenges

Updated

What is a Winner Takes All Challenge? 

A Winner Takes All (WTA) challenge allows schools to set up a time-bound competition where different designations or groups of designations compete to secure the most donors or dollars. At the end of the challenge, the winning designation receives an award, which can be either a monetary contribution or a non-monetary incentive.
 

Common WTA Use Cases

  • All School Hourly Challenges
    • Each hour, the designation with the most donors receives an additional $1,000
    • Some schools limit how many times a designation can win in the day
  • Athletics Team Challenge: 
    • Sports teams compete to secure the highest number of donors before the campaign ends.
    • The winning team receives luxury travel on a charter bus to their next away game.
  • Student Organization Power Hour: 
    • Student organizations competing for the most donors between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m.
    • The winning organization gets an additional $5,000 for their program

Setting Up a WTA Challenge

Add Challenge Details: 

  1. Navigate to the Matches & Challenges tab of your campaign settings
  2. Click New Offline Match or Challenge
  3. Select Challenge - Winner Takes All
  4. Enter the Challenge Details
    • Type: Dollars or Donors
    • Title and Description
    • Start and End Time
Select Competing Groups:
  • Decide if this WTA will be based on specific designations or designation groups
  • Select the appropriate designations or designation groups

Note: You can add or remove competing designations and groups after a WTA challenge starts. 

Define the Award:
  • Select the winning award type and, if applicable, the monetary amount
  • For dollar-based awards, the funds will automatically be added to the winning designation once the winner is approved.
Add Challenge Donor Information:
  • Name
  • Email (for reporting purposes only, no emails will be sent)
  • Country
  • Zip Code

WTA Challenge Statuses & Display

Scheduled:
  • Challenges scheduled for a future start date will not appear on the campaign page until they go live.
  • These challenges will be labeled as Scheduled in the Matches & Challenges section.

Active:

  • Once live, the challenge will display:
    • Custom description, header, and parameters
    • Time frame, award details, and offering donor
    • Leaderboard showing the top five groups, updating in real-time
Pending:
  • After the challenge ends, it will appear as Pending in the admin dashboard.
  • The campaign page will show “Calculating—Check back soon!”

Complete:

  • Once a winner is approved, the challenge status updates to Complete, and the winner is highlighted on the campaign page.

Display on Tiered Campaigns

  • WTA challenges appear on any tiered landing page relevant to the competing designations.
  • Example: If sports teams are competing, the challenge will be visible on both the main campaign page and the Athletics Tier 2 page—but not on the Academics Tier 2 page.

Approving & Changing Winners

  1. Once the challenge ends, administrators receive an email notification to approve the winner.
  2. GiveCampus will automatically highlight the winner based on raw data.
  3. Administrators can review the Match/Challenge report to verify fair play and prevent potential manipulation.
  4. School administrators can either approve or change the winner.
    • The administrator who confirms the winner will be recorded.
    • For dollar-based WTA challenges, confirming the winner updates the campaign totals and leaderboard.


Editing Winner Takes All Challenges

Editable While Challenge is Live or Scheduled:

  • Donor Information
  • Name & Description
  • Award Type
  • Challenge Type (donors vs. dollars)
    • Note: Changing the challenge type may take up to 10 minutes to recalculate, especially if a large number of gifts have been made.
  • Competing Designations
  • Time
    • Start times can only be adjusted before a challenge goes live.
    • End times can be adjusted while the challenge is live or scheduled.

Editable Once Challenge is Completed:

  • Donor Information
  • Name & Description
  • Challenge Winner
  • Challenge Type (donors vs. dollars)
    • Updating the challenge type will can take up to 10 minutes to recalculate, especially when there are a large number of gifts that have applied towards the challenge.

FAQs

Can I create a WTA Challenge based on Affiliations?

Not yet, but it's on our radar for future development! If this is something you'd like to see, please share your feedback with our Partner Success team or via support@givecampus.com

Can a donor give to multiple competing groups?

Yes. For both Donor and Dollar type challenges, a donor will count for any competing groups they give to, whether it's done as part of one transaction or multiple. For Donor type challenges, they will only count once per competing group regardless of the number of transactions. Deduplication is automatic, based on matching both donor name and email address to an existing donor.

Do offline gifts count toward WTA challenges?

Yes, if the offline gift is uploaded while the WTA challenge is active. Gifts count at the time of upload, so changes to offline gift designations afterward won’t apply. If needed, delete and re-upload the gift with the correct designation.

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