Modeling Prompt

Instead of expecting students to look up relevant data (example data for one particular rescue organization is a part of the sample response), you may wish to look up relevant data for your local organization, and provide it when students ask.

An animal rescue organization, which relies mainly on donations to support their work, is deciding between two campaign strategies to raise funds. The organization has a sizable group of supporters—people who adopted the rescued animals or those who had donated money to the cause. These options are under consideration:

• Send the fundraising message to their most loyal supporters. Ask them to each pass the message to a certain number of their animal-loving friends, along with the same request of relaying it to a certain number of their friends, and so on. 
• Send the message to all supporters on their list. Ask them to share the message with everyone in their network of friends, along with the request to continue passing the message to everyone on those friends’ lists. With this strategy, the organization recognizes that only a fraction of the recipients are likely to read the message or pass it along. 
• Broadcast the message by buying a commercial that will air on the local news.

Which strategy would likely yield the better outcome for the organization?

In this version of the prompt, more information is given, but students still need to refine the question to something like, “How many people will see the message after 1 week?,” decide to use an exponential model, and make an assumption about how long it takes a person to share the message. 

An organization is trying to decide between three sets of assumptions for their viral marketing campaign:

• Send the message to 20 people, and assume that each person will share the message with 3 other, new people (and each of them will share with 3 new people, and so on).
• Send the message to 5 people, and assume that each person will share the message with 6 other, new people (and each of them will share with 6 new people, and so on).
• Broadcast the message by paying for a television commercial that reaches 100,000 people, but can’t be shared easily.

Which set of assumptions would have the best outcome for the organization, and why? 
 

In this version of the prompt, even more information is given, and a more specific question is asked. Students still need to decide to use an exponential model. 

An organization is trying to decide between three sets of assumptions for their viral marketing campaign:

• Send the message to 20 people, and assume that each person will take 1 day to share the message with 3 other, new people (and each of them will share with 3 new people, and so on).
• Send the message to 5 people, and assume that each person will take 1 day to share the message with 6 other, new people (and each of them will share with 6 new people, and so on).
• Broadcast the message by paying for a television commercial that reaches 100,000 people, but can’t be shared easily.

For which scenario would the most people see the message by the 6th day that the organization sent it?