Oprah’s Big Give moved to Houston this week. There weren’t too many money moments as the episode seemed to be about pure philanthropy. However, we did see a lot of fundraising by the teams. Show spoilers to follow…

This week’s episode had the remaining contestants split between two teams. Both Teams were given a school that needed help. The teams were also supported by a celebrity.

Team A – Cameron, Eric, Stephen, Brandi AND professional skateboarder, Tony Hawk
This team was selected to bring a “Christmas” event to their school. While they did not use their celebrity as effectively as they could have, they did show their continued ability to have the community open their arms. It even appeared that Target may have donated more than $16,000 worth of toys. Since we’ve seen Target helping in a past episode, it deserves to be noted.

Team B – Sheg, Rachael, Kim, Carlana AND professional tennis player, Andre Agassi
This team was selected to bring a new play ground to the kids. They had Andre Agassi conducting an auction where the prize was a trip to Vegas with private tennis lessons from Andre and his wife Steffi Graf. Andre Agassi showed a great example of effective fundraising. In the bidding process of the auction the highest bid was at $75k, and the second highest at $70k. He went back to both “winners” and said that he would make it $70k for each and give out two prizes!

The kids at these schools were the winners this week. During the previous two episodes I have really liked Rachael, but this week she seemed very bossy. She also did not appear to be open to developing a better relationship with Carlana. In the end however, the judges chose Carlana as the contestant that would not continue.

“Fishing Lesson” award of the week goes to everyone. This challenge did not have any pure examples of someone teaching another how to “Fish” for themselves, so I have to give the award to everyone, these kids will hopefully catch on to the “big give” movement and will choose to help others as they grow into adults.

Since there weren’t many money moments in this episode, I’d like to hear from all of you. What have been some successful fundraising tactics you have used in the past. I’ll start the discussion – As a kid, I was in a youth group that conducted a “Free” car wash (with donations accepted). Since we didn’t set a price, people tended to give us larger donations than past car washes when we had set the price. Often time in fundraising we tend to leave money on the table. Be creative, and you may get better results.

Let’s hear your ideas: