
Designing 100-Day Challenges
(for Challenge Strategists)
The purpose of this guide is to prepare you to organise a rapid (100-day) project that aims to significantly improve a strategic issue that requires fresh thinking and collaboration across departments and/or organisations.
You will be learning about the 100-Day Challenge Approach. Leaders in the private sector, in Government and in non-profit organisations, have used this approach to make breakthrough improvements on a multitude of issues and in dozens of countries all over the world. So, you will be joining a community of global leaders who have achieved remarkable results by empowering and enabling others in their organisations and communities.
Below are some of these leaders describing the results they were able to inspire through 100-Day Challenges.
100-Day Challenges Experiences
Our own 100-Day Challenge Guru – Nadim (the young version)- talking about doing 100-Day Challenges in different countries. (100-Day Challenge used to be called Rapid Results Initiatives)
Chief Prosecutor for the Polokwane Cluster, Octavia, shares some insight into the impact of the End GBVF 100-Day Challenges in the courts and how the experience has influenced the way of working to improve the reporting and management of GBVF cases in courts.
The Managing Director of Newmont Australia (Mining Sector), Mia, uses 100-Day Challenges, which was called Rapid Results in the past, to enable the operations to utilise and harness the front-line teams’ capacities to implement and innovate.
You are in a leadership position in your organisation. Your role is organising a 100-Day Challenge that inspires a cross-organisational team to progress significantly on an important GBVF issue. You and the team you organise will be joining a movement of activists who are taking the initiative and actually doing something about GBVF in our country rather than waiting for instructions and guidance from outside and above.
The 100-Day Challenge as a Relay Race
The 100-Day Challenge can be viewed as a relay race, with the baton getting passed back and forth between the different athletes. Unlike real relay races, when athletes pass on the baton, they do not get out of the race. They continue running alongside the athlete with the baton, supporting and cheering them along.

In this graphic, you, the Challenge Strategist, are in blue. As you can see, you will run with the relay baton until about two weeks before Day 0 (Start-Up Workshop). At week minus 2, you will hand the baton to the Team Coach (in red). The Team Coach will hand it over to the Team Leader (in green) after the Start-Up Workshop. Meanwhile, you will still be standing and running on the side of the track, cheering the Team Leader and the Team.
You will get back on the track at the end of the Scale-Up Workshop, when you get the baton back from the Team Leader. And you will continue to run and clarify the path forward. Once this is done, you will hand the baton over to one or more Challenge Strategists (this is not shown in the graphic). And the 100-Day “sprint” will join up with other sprints and becomes a marathon…
Guidance on Designing and Supporting 100-Day Challenges

As a Challenge Strategist, you will provide the inspiration and energy to bring 100-Day Challenges into existence, and you will put them on the proper track to run their race. And you will cheer them along during their 100-Day race. In short, you play a very critical role.

In order to help you understand this role and play it effectively, the World of Impact team will send you WhatsApp messages, most weeks, for the next 20 weeks or so.
100-Day Challenge Strategist WhatsApp group – LINK

Each Note will include specific tasks that you will need to follow-up on, complete, or pay special attention to, in that week. We refer to these messages as Guidance Notes. They will include guidance on performing these tasks.

Most Guidance Notes will include links to more substantive information to prepare you to perform these tasks. We refer to these substantive information packets as Learning Deep Dives. We highly encourage you to go over these.

At the end of each Guidance Note, there will be an Assignment that you are expected to complete. It generally takes 5-15 minutes. It either refers back to the Learning Deep Dives of the week, or it includes information that was generated by you or others during the week.

The World of Impact team will host a weekly one-hour “Ask a Guru” Zoom call. Please join these if you have questions after reviewing the Guidance Note and Learning Deep Dives of the week.

As you’ll see in next week’s Guidance Note, one of your first tasks will be to recruit a Team Coach. The Coach will work closely with you before the Start-Up Workshop, and then he will provide hands-on support to the Team during the 100-Day race. Team Coaches will receive their own customised guidance note each week, and they will be invited to join the Ask a Guru” weekly calls.

Please note that in line with the figures in the race diagram, throughout the programme, we will use the female pronouns for the Challenge Strategist and Team Leader and the male pronouns for the Team Coach.
Weekly Assignment
Click to complete the Assignment
100-Day Challenge Strategist Certification Track

North-West University Certification
The Management Department at North-West University has adopted this program as one of its “short courses” on leadership and project management. You will be eligible to receive a certificate of participation from the University if you complete the assignments at the end of each Guidance Note. The short course certificate can be used for credit towards a further qualification in management from the University.
Enrolling in the certification program requires a registration fee of R250. There no fee required for the learning programme. This is covered, for all public service employees and staff of public benefit organisations by the Ford Foundation, as part of the Ending GBVF 100-Day Challenge Learning Programme.
Please contact us at learning@theworldofimpact.org if you’d like to enroll in the 100-Day Challenge Strategist Certification Programme.