Grow a Beard for a Good Cause During the NHL Playoffs...
Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 05:41PM 
Are you looking for a creative way to drive donations for a charitable organization? Are you looking for a way to capitalize on playoff fever?
During the 2009 NHL playoffs, several teams have aligned with Cenergy Communications to offer a Beard-a-Thon competition for fans to participate in and enjoy online. The Beard-a-Thon serves as a promotional effort designed to drive charitable donations around the excitement of playoff hockey. With a captivating slogan (Grow one for the team), the charitable promotion serves as a great way to engage fans in the action.
On the Beard-a-Thon web site, fans are asked to create an account that shows their playoff beard. For fans that cannot grow facial hair, the site features some graphics to let consumers create a customized look. Once a profile is created, consumers can then donate money on your behalf (or your favorite team) to the charitable cause aligned with the Beard-a-Thon competition. Fans who raise the most money for their charitable organizations will win a grand prize selected by each fo the teams (2nd and 3rd place will also be given prizes in some cases).
Teams are promoting the Beard-a-Thon with press releases and some prime banner ad space on their team home pages. From a social media standpoint, Cenergy Communications created a Twitter account (@Beardathon) to drive some additional impressions (674 followers) for the charitable promotion.
Teams participating in the Beard-a-Thon competition include:
- Boston Bruins (Boston Bruins Foundation) - Raised $67K*
- New York Rangers (Garden of Dreams) - Raised $27K
- Washington Capitals (Caps Care) - Raised $34K
- Chicago Blackhawks (Chicago Blackhawks Charities) - Raised $12K
- Detroit Red Wings (Detroit Red Wings Foundation) - Still Growing
- Philadelphia Flyers (Flyers Charities, Comcast Spectacor Foundation) - Still Growing
- San Jose Sharks (Sharks Foundation) - Still Growing
- Pittsburgh Penguins (The Mario Lemieux Foundation) - Raised $61K
- Carolina Hurricanes (Kids N' Community Foundation) - Raised $35K
*One Bruins fan, Bob Sweeney of Boston, MA raised $11K+ in donations on his own
Enclosed are some vignettes that participating teams created to promote the Beard-a-Thon cause: