TV quiz winner's giveaway acts as catalyst to giving

Howard Lake | 17 March 2007 | News

Tagged with:
Giving/Philanthropy

65K GO MAD GIVEAWAY CREATES NEW CATALYST FOR CARING

CHARITY Go MAD Giveaway

16 Mar 2007 – 09:58

Legacy & In-Memory Fundraising Conference, September 2026

Page 1

:: PR Newswire, London, March 16. This press release is transmitted on

behalf of Go MAD Research & Consulting Group.

LEICESTER, England, March 16 /PRNewswire/ — A thinking guru who won

GBP65,000 on ITV1’s primetime quiz show Poker Face and vowed to give all

of the cash away has struck a chord with the UK public who want to feel

good by helping others.

Andy Gilbert, 43, scooped the money on March 3 2007. He approached

the quiz using the thinking skills he employs to coach business

executives in his role as founder and managing director of Go MAD

Research & Consulting Group. The Go MAD (R)Thinking system has been used

by tens of thousands of people worldwide over the last ten years to help

them to achieve greater success including business improvement, sporting

performance, health and fitness, education, financial security and

career development.

Says Gilbert: “Reaching third place and realising I could not win I

switched from my original tactics as I suddenly remembered the Channel 4

Show ‘The Secret Millionaire.’ My whole passion is about helping people

to make a difference so I thought to myself, what would be the biggest

difference I could make with the money? Wouldn’t it be a fun way to

spend it to benefit others? I initially suggested giving 1,000 people

GBP65.00 each for them to then give to a person for whom this seemingly

small amount could actually make a positive difference.

“Within days it became apparent that this idea has captured people’s

imagination as we were inundated with suggestions for recipients of the

money. For example the manager of a mental health care trust wants to

take her 12 patients to the seaside and provide them with fish and

chips.

“It seems that people want to connect with others. This is true of

corporations too and we have had hundreds of offers from other

businesses for them to also donate GBP65 to someone deserving. They

think it is a great way to engage their employees to feel good about

themselves and the company. My imagination has been fired by this and I

would like to put out a challenge to all UK businesses to make a

difference in the lives of others by giving away multiples of GBP65, via

their own employees, to make a difference to others. In this way I think

that the total amount given away will be many times my original

GBP65,000 winnings”.

Gilbert plans to give the money away on or before ‘Make a Difference

Day’ on October 27 as this is a day about helping others and in keeping

with his company name and the philosophy of Go MAD (Make a Difference).

He has set up an e-mail address for individuals or companies eager to be

involved to contact him on at 65*****@***********ng.com and plans to

start a blog on www.gomadthinking.com to document how the campaign

unfolds.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.