The Great Recession has Positive Impact on Team Building Industry

The Great Recession that started in late 2008 and extended to 2010 had an, somewhat positive, effect on the team building industry. Many big companies were hit with negative morale among employees. As a result, a number of these big companies began to add philanthropic team building to meetings and conventions. In fact, although the number of Build-A-Bike ® activities that we delivered dropped slightly in 2009, we began working with a number of huge new clients that year. So, while other industries shrank, the team building industry grew.

Healthcare Clients Lead the Way in Philanthropic Team Building

In 2009 and 2010, we continued to do a number of events for Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, DaVita and others. In addition, though, we began working with other huge healthcare companies like Merck, Novartis, Tekada, Quest Diagnostic, and United Health.

A Few Unique Events Require a Custom Solution

Also in the Great Recession, a number of professional companies started offering charity team building activities during their on-boarding process. Both CBIZ and Deloitte began having us deliver Build-A-Bike ® activities for their newest employees. We also began working with Erst & Young in 2009. One of the most interesting Build-A-Bike ® events of this time period was for the Blind Merchants Association. The participants were adamant that they wanted us to deliver the event just as we do with other audiences. It was very inspiring.

High Tech, Finance, and Food and Beverage

We also conducted a number of events for high tech companies in 2009 and 2010. We led the our first Build-A-Bike ® for Apple in 2010. However, we taught another two events for Apple before the end of 2010. We also had a really fun event for GameStop in Dallas. We led a number of events for Dolby as well. Silcon Valley has always been a great location for charity team building events, and we led dozens of events there. One memorable one was for Facebook. At that point, Facebook was only a couple of years old.

We continued to do a number of events for Wells Fargo, but we also conducted three events for Bank of America in 2010. In addition, we started a long term relationship with “Bill Me Later” which later became PayPal. We have taught dozens of events for PayPal since.

The food and beverage industry was one that we seemed to specialize in back in 2009 and 2010. We led events for beverage companies like Dr. Pepper, Pepsico, and Starbucks.  We also began working with Pepperidge Farm, Nestle, and Krispie Kreme.

All in All, The Great Recession Help the Team Building Industry

In 2009 and 2010, we led over 250 different Build-A-Bike ® events. In that time, we gave away over 2500 bicycles to children. However, things picked up dramatically in 2011 and 2012!