Designing The Occasion, Not Just The Event.
SVITLO’s 4th Anniversary: A Virtual Charity Celebration.
This virtual event case study looks at how SVITLO, an online school serving more than 2,000 children affected by the war in Ukraine, brought their milestone celebration online. The school usually celebrates its milestone in person. This year, they wanted to bring it online and asked us to lead the celebration.
The Challenge.
With war, displacement, and winter blackouts across Ukraine still weighing on the community, this virtual charity anniversary still had to deliver everything an in-person celebration would. Real interaction, fun, and enough pace and polish to feel like an occasion rather than a video call. More than 35 students were hosting their own breakout sessions for donors and guests they’d mostly never met. Several presented in English for the first time; their leadership was what everyone needed to remember from the night.
“The students were able to participate from Ukraine, and those in refugee host nations, which would not have been possible in a face-to-face event. This was particularly important because winter was a terrible time in Ukraine with power cuts and blackouts, so students being able to celebrate with us was so important. The students were also able to get real-world leadership experience, leading a breakout activity for a group of adults, many of whom they did not know. This gave students the opportunity to step outside their comfort zone, preparing an engaging session and running it in English, ensuring engagement and participation throughout. They were so proud of themselves, and many were overcome with emotion in our post-event Zoom.”
Leslie Jane O’Connor, Head of Marketing, SVITLO.
The Solution.
Delivering this virtual charity celebration meant Virtual Approval didn’t just provide the technical setup. We led the entire experience design and content flow. Shaping how the celebration would move from welcome through quiz, breakouts, and presentations to a closing that felt earned. We then managed everything behind that: the pre-production, the complex live integrations and flows the show needed to move between elements without a hitch, full rehearsals with the SVITLO team beforehand, and individual briefings for staff and each of the 35+ student hosts so first-time presenters knew exactly what to expect and when.
The recap video also captured just how wide SVITLO’s community has grown!
“For people to be trained and understand, who can be dynamic leaders.” From the recap video played during the celebration.
Guests took part rather than watched. One live tool turned the call into a shared world map with playful mood checks, and a quiz and leaderboard tested knowledge of SVITLO’s school and Ukrainian culture. The recap video captured how far that sense of a shared community reaches and the impact of the school on the students.
Virtual Approval also set up a branded digital scrapbook which ran alongside the whole event, for anyone to add to in real time. Students and guests dropped in photos of themselves, pets, and everyday lives, alongside comments and messages for one another. For a group scattered across different countries and time zones, it became a way to connect, and it left everyone with a genuine keepsake afterwards. A visible record of just how much support SVITLO has from every part of the world.
Underneath it all sat a live, spreadsheet-based scoring system. Carefully weighted so the automated points from the quiz couldn’t outweigh the points student hosts awarded in the breakout activities. Keeping the competition fair across two very different kinds of contribution. Every prize winner was held back and revealed together at the end. It was a deliberate choice, building suspense and keeping guests in the room for one live moment of celebration together.
That judgment showed up in the smaller calls too. Rather than push interactive tools out into over a dozen student-led breakout rooms, where one dropped connection could derail a room with no producer in it. Virtual Approval kept the tech-heavy moments centralised and live-hosted. Left the breakouts themselves low-tech and conversational so the students could focus on hosting, not troubleshooting. The opening mood check used a game modelled on one SVITLO’s own teachers already play with the children in class. Guests got a genuine taste of a SVITLO lesson rather than a generic icebreaker. Even the welcome playlist was checked to make sure nothing culturally inappropriate had slipped onto a “Ukrainian hits” list.
On the day, Virtual Approval produced the whole show live. A quiz, scored breakout activities, presentations, music, and video. Run to a schedule built for pace and feeling as much as logistics.
The Outcome
The event delivered everything SVITLO needed from it. Proper celebration despite a genuinely heavy year, real connection between students, staff, volunteers, and donors often scattered across different countries. Student hosts stepping into a genuine leadership role in front of guests they’d never met. It felt like an occasion carried fully online rather than a video call standing in for one. The scoring system meant the excitement continued throughout the event, keeping attendance high.
Student hosts leading their own sessions: 35+.
Breakout activities designed: 8+
Interactive moments: throughout out the event
Prize winners announced: live, on the day, not by follow-up email.
Total guests, donors, and volunteers attending: around 100.
The school’s praise didn’t stop at the post-event Zoom either. The COE later left Virtual Approval a public five-star Google review:
“I worked with Virtual Approval on a corporate event and couldn’t have been happier. The team is very professional, and we received lots of amazing reviews from the guests of the events. Highly recommended.”
Yuliya Kosko, Google review.
“The students were so motivated to deliver fun, interesting breakout sessions, and their preparation and commitment truly paid off. In fact, after the event we went straight on to another Zoom because the students were so excited to share their experience; it was 90 minutes of joy, laughter, gratitude and a few happy tears!”
Yuliya Kosko, Founder & CEO, SVITLO.
What Came Next.
The students were so taken with one of the interactive elements, the one that could pull live responses straight from the chat. That Virtual Approval ran a follow-up ‘tool showcase’ for them. Walking through how it and a few other tools are set up behind the scenes. That one moment from the celebration is already shaping how SVITLO teaches. After an introduction to StreamAlive’s founder and team, the school is now piloting it across every class. Plans are in place to bring it to every student and volunteer teacher. Turning a highlight from one night into a lasting part of how lessons run. The CEO and SVITLO’s pilot lead, Pavlo (Pasha), have both pointed to it as one of the best things to come out of the collaboration.
The recap video played that night was really a window onto that longer story. SVITLO students going on to build the futures that night’s celebration was raising money and morale for.
“I hope I can apply my skills to help with the Svitlo mission.” Vlad Yagnion, on graduating from Harrow School Online with three A*s and a confirmed place to study Computer Science in the UK.
“Svitlo gave me this amazing possibility to have a graduation in my life.”
As this case study shows, a virtual charity anniversary can carry the same weight as an in-person one. If you’re planning an online event that needs more than good logistics, get in touch today.
