A LL guide f

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question:

how can we
make a sus-
tainable dif-
ference?
gumball challenge
executive summary

1 You get a $27 loan and 27 gumballs.

2 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.

3 You send your money back to the Gumball

Fund, which reinvests your profits in the pov-
erty alleviation organization of your choice.
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 manifesto
Blow 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 gumball
Ending 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.
so you want to be a
gumballer?

1 Find a team.

2 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?

3 Design your idea. Come up with concrete time-

lines and goals.

4 Implement. Go out and do it!

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 school

Have 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.

i.

ii.

iii.

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

i.

ii.

iii.
PLANNING STAGE: 4-6 weeks BC
expectations
You 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.
design thinking
This 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?

2 Identify insights from the people you’ve talked to. De-

fine a “need space.”

3 Brainstorm. How can you fill that need space?

4 Come up with a quick plan or model. Probe it and see

if it works.

5 Refine– do more brainstorming and tightening! Set a

timeline and defined goals.

6 Define your product (your plan for the week) and your
story (why are you doing this?)

Teams can submit evidence of each step of this pro-

cess online to earn a Design Thinking badge, which
counts towards national prize eligibility.
 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 Raised
Best Microfinance Advocate
Most Innovative Idea
Biggest Risk Taker
Most Sustainable Business Idea

NATIONAL PRIZES:
Most Epic
Biggest Microfinance Advocate
Biggest Social Innovator
Most Innovative Idea
Biggest Risk Taker
Most Sustainable Business Idea
CHALLENGE
where can you reinvest?
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. 

Here are some metrics to help you de-

cide where to send your profits:

OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL GRAMEEN FOUNDATION

http://www.opportunity.org
Provides 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.
http://www.grameemfoundation.org
Increases 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.
KIVA
http://www.kiva.org
Enables 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.
HEIFER INTERNATIONAL
http://www.heifer.org
Striving 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.
WOKAI
http://www.wokai.org
Focuses on China. Since its
founding in 2007, Wokai has in-
vested $300,000 through about
600 loans.
GUMBALL CAPITAL
http://www.gumballcapital.org
Empowering 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
 question:

how can we
change the
world?