For the past three months, team members at Ottawa consultancy Alphabet Creative have gathered monthly in their boardroom at lunchtime with one goal in mind — to dominate at trivia.
The company is taking part in a new initiative organized by local non-profit Youth Ottawa, a “gamified giving platform” called Trivia 4 Tomorrow.
Each month, the organization hosts a 45-minute virtual team trivia match where local organizations ranging from businesses and non-profits to young people trying to get their first venture off the ground square off in a battle of wits. Participants throw $25 to $250 into the hat for the chance to compete against other teams from the comfort of their own offices or homes.
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A portion of the funding goes towards funding Youth Ottawa programming, while the rest is split between the top three finishers.
For young entrepreneurs, it’s a chance to win some cash to invest in their project, said executive director Jesse Card. For businesses, it’s an opportunity to fund the next generation.
“You can take the money out, you can reinvest it into the platform or give it to one of the youth projects that are listed,” Card told OBJ. “If they win, they can get together and collectively decide where they want that money to go, and be directly involved in that outcome.”
Though still in its early days, Card said the initiative has quickly gained traction among local businesses, with companies like Celebright, Holiday Inn Kanata and Fullscript hopping on board to participate.
Alphabet Creative was another early adopter.
“It’s really fun,” account director Marley Kirkpatrick told OBJ. “It’s low cost for a business to participate and we can all get together in the boardroom and have a ton of fun. Questions pop up on screen and you have to really quickly work as a team to answer them. And there’s money on the line, so it makes it a little competitive.”
Last month, she said Alphabet won some money and chose to put it toward a youth project.
“It was really great that we could then actually see where that was going,” she said. “Jesse gave us a couple of options of different initiatives they’re working with in the city and we got to choose where we put our money. It’s really fun to see that go full circle. And it feels very close to home. We get to see that go into our community.”
She added, jokingly, that the Alphabet team hasn’t yet finessed its trivia strategy. “We’re really still all just yelling at the screen. We’re not very refined yet.”
Youth Ottawa has worked with businesses before, Card said, but this initiative is a new attempt to draw in new partners and experiment with ways to deepen those connections.
“The charitable space, it’s been even more challenging than normal after the pandemic,” he said. “We’re hearing that from colleagues in the sector and we have long known that we need to diversify revenue streams to stay alive. So we’re trying to look for ways to do that that local businesses can support.”
With this platform, Card said the goal was to keep it affordable and minimize friction, making it an easy investment for businesses. It’s also an approach that he felt could scale.
“We’ve created something that we think is really different from every other charity looking to support young people,” he said. “Our main value proposition is we really believe in positioning young people as active architects, as opposed to passive beneficiaries of programs. They pitch what they’re trying to do and we set them up on the trivia platform.”
So far, entrepreneurs behind three youth projects have gotten involved in the initiative.
Card said one participant — a 26-year-old newcomer who is reimagining a defunct dry cleaning business on Albert Street — recently won $76 in trivia money that he’ll be putting towards advertising on Meta to start getting the word out.
It’s the kind of support that doesn’t require a lot of effort, said Card, but makes a big difference for young people.
“You don’t have to leave the office, you don’t have to pay for gas or parking,” he said. “It’s an excuse to get the company together and focus on the community. Two hundred fifty dollars isn’t going to break the bank (for businesses). And if they win, they get to be directly involved in the outcome.”
