We ran a World Cup competition. A ten-year-old won it. And his reason why made it all worthwhile.

I'll be honest with you. When I set up the Football Pontoon game at the start of the World Cup, I wasn't expecting it to become one of my favourite things we've done at Charisma.

It started simply enough. I came across the game late one Monday evening and spent longer than I probably should have reading the rules before deciding we needed to run one. The concept is wonderfully simple: you pick four teams from the tournament, their goals add up as the competition progresses, and whoever gets closest to 21 without going over wins. It's essentially blackjack with football teams, and considerably less pressure. We put up a £200 donation to the winner's charity of choice, shared it on LinkedIn and WhatsApp, and left it to run across the tournament.

What happened next was better than anything I'd planned.

The result
Fin, a ten-year-old, finished on exactly 21. In a World Cup that produced goals at a genuinely relentless pace, with 27 players entered and the majority going bust well before the final whistle, Fin sat quietly on 21 and won the whole thing. 

I finished fifth overall, which I'd like to think reflects badly on the tournament rather than on me, but I suspect the truth is simpler than that. I set up the competition, promoted it enthusiastically, and then proceeded to go bust at 27 while a child calmly picked up the prize. Recruitment is clearly my stronger suit.

Shout outs to Chanel and Mark as well who deserve real credit for being the only other two players who stayed under the limit, finishing on 20 and 17 respectively. As for the handful of players who cleared 60…well we won’t dwell on your choices!

Why Fin chose Oakhaven
When Fin told us he wanted his £200 to go to Oakhaven Hospice and why, it was incredibly touching. Oakhaven cared for his Nanny five years ago, and when he had the chance to do something good with his win, that's where his mind went without hesitation. There's something quietly remarkable about that. A ten-year-old, given a free choice, choosing to send money back to the people who showed up for his family when it mattered most. It's the kind of instinct that takes some adults a lifetime to develop, and he had it straight away.

Hospices occupy a particular place in the charity sector that I think is easy to overlook until you need them. The work they do is often invisible to people until the moment it becomes everything, and then it's hard to imagine how you'd have got through without it. Oakhaven is a brilliant choice, and it meant a great deal to us to be able to make the donation on Fin's behalf.

Why we ran it in the first place
Charisma works exclusively with charities and third sector organisations, and that's not a niche we fell into by accident. It's a deliberate choice that shapes everything about how we operate, from the clients we take on to the candidates we support to the conversations we have every day. The people who work in this sector, and the organisations they serve, matter to us in a way that goes beyond the transactional.

Running a World Cup competition might seem like a small thing set against all of that, and in one sense it is. But it also felt like a natural expression of something we genuinely believe - that community matters, that the sector is made up of real people with real connections to the causes they serve, and that you don't always need a grand gesture to do something meaningful. Sometimes you just need a football pontoon game, 27 willing participants, and a ten-year-old with better judgement than the rest of us.

Fin's choice of Oakhaven was a reminder of exactly why the sector we work in is worth caring about.

What's next
We'll be doing this again. The response was warm, the outcome was genuinely moving, and it would feel wrong not to. Watch this space!

In the meantime, if you work in the charity sector and you're thinking about your next hire, or you're a leader wondering whether your organisation is approaching recruitment in the right way, I'd love to have a conversation. No hard sell, no jargon, just an honest chat about what good recruitment looks like and whether Charisma might be the right partner for you.

And if you happen to know a ten-year-old with strong football intuition, please keep an eye out for future competitions. But be warned, Fin has set a very high bar!