A fun run fundraiser is one of the simplest and most effective ways to harness the power of your supporters to boost your nonprofit's donations and outreach. There are certain best practices, tools, and steps that you should follow to liven up this event and attract more eyeballs to it. Read this guide to learn them all.
Fun run fundraisers are also known as charity runs and have become a go-to fundraiser for many nonprofits. Regardless of your organization’s size and purpose, a fun run fundraiser can help you promote your nonprofit’s mission, reach a larger audience, and raise more funds.
In this article, we’ll share more about fun run fundraising, steps to host a successful fun run, and ways to make your event exciting.
Fun run fundraising is a popular kind of a-thon event where supporters register to run and collect donations from their friends and family. The donations may be collected based on the distance they’ve run or irrespective of that.
The popularity of these events has increased with the invention of peer-to-peer fundraising tools. Another reason this type of fundraiser is commonly used is that it’s easily adaptable for in-person, virtual, and hybrid events. Supporters can sign up to participate, run anywhere they are at their own convenience, and fundraise online.
Modern fundraising tools like Donorbox Peer-to-Peer make it easy for you to host a fun run fundraiser with your supporters. You can easily create a fundraising campaign and turn it into a peer-to-peer fundraising one within minutes. Now, add an “I want to fundraise for this” button to your campaign so that anybody can participate and raise money with your fun run. Alternatively, you can also invite your supporters right from the tool. They will receive an invitation email from Donorbox to sign up and customize their fundraising pages to raise money for you.
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Another reason for this fundraiser’s popularity is that anyone can hold a fun run fundraiser. Regardless of the age and size of your donor base, there’s an excellent chance you’ll bring in a crowd.
A large group of athletes actively search for these events, so nonprofits also have the chance to turn these runners into long-term supporters.
Foster the Family’s fun run fundraiser includes an adult 5k and a kid’s fun run, which targets two different volunteer groups and their communities. The kid’s fun run appeals to most of their existing supporters, but by adding a 5k, they can bring in an entirely new group of potential donors as well. They also redirect potential participants to their Donorbox-hosted peer-to-peer fundraising campaign page to help them sign up to fundraise for the organization.
The cost of a fun run fundraiser is another reason more nonprofits are interested in hosting this type of event. Virtual fun run fundraisers have minimal costs outside of online donation tools.
In-person events can cost quite a bit more. To limit the cost, nonprofits in a community can plan to work together to hold a successful event for all organizations involved.
Like any event, it takes several steps to run a successful fun run fundraiser.
Hosting an event requires more than one person. The first thing any nonprofit must do is build a team of volunteers and staff to help run the event.
Once you have your team, you can split them to oversee different activities and aspects of the event. By involving groups of supporters from the beginning, your organization will have a greater chance of reaching more people and raising more funds.
With this team, you will also have frequent meetings to discuss the fundraising goal, recruiting fundraisers, creating a fundraising toolkit, the progress of your fun run, and other necessary actions that will ensure the success of your event.
The idea of a fun run is to have participants fundraise for your organization. But it is advisable to not wait around for people to discover your event and choose to participate in it.
Reach out to your ardent supporters including volunteers, donors, staff and board members, friends, and family, and ask them to be the first participants of your fun run fundraiser.
Their participation will help spread the word and inspire people from their networks to join the fun run event. They will talk about the event and your organization’s mission on social media, which will work as social proof thus bringing more attention to your peer-to-peer campaign.
Remember to equip them with the best tools so they can effectively engage with potential participants and raise money with your event.
Choose a powerful peer-to-peer fundraising tool that is crucial to making your event a success.
A peer-to-peer fundraising tool lets you create a parent campaign and invite your fundraisers from the tool to create child or peer campaign pages under it. Individuals should be able to add personal stories and images to catch their community’s attention and share why they support your nonprofit.
Donorbox Peer-to-Peer makes it easy to create a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign for your fun run fundraiser. You can then invite your fundraisers from the tool. Donorbox will send them invitation emails to sign up and customize their own fundraising pages to raise money with your event. You can also add an “I want to fundraise for this” button to your parent campaign page and enable anybody to choose to fundraise for you.
Peer-to-peer fundraising pages on Donorbox are equipped with social media sharing buttons that help your fundraisers and anyone to share these campaigns on social media easily. Check out our step-by-step guide to get started today.
Look what Revelation Wellness, one of Donorbox Peer-to-Peer users, has to say about their experience of using this tool.
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Pro tip: Create a fundraising toolkit for your fundraisers. This will include a guide to use your peer-to-peer fundraising tool, email and social media post templates to promote their fundraising pages, ready-to-use templates to share campaign updates, and other essential materials. Take up this free course on peer-to-peer fundraising by Donorbox Academy that includes it all.
Once you have your event team, fundraisers, and fundraising tool in place, it’s time to start planning your upcoming event.
Before you start, it’s best to determine your event goals and choose your ideal audience. SMART fundraising goals help organizations stay on track and focused on sharing their nonprofit’s mission.
Depending on the size and type of event, your plans may include activities like
Please note that if you’re hosting a virtual fun run fundraiser, you will have a slightly different checklist to plan your event. It could include things like how you will track participants’ progress, how long the fun run event will take place, which virtual tools you and the participants will use to coordinate, and more. You can check our guide to hosting a virtual 5k for ideas and tips.
Set up a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign on your chosen tool. Your parent campaign page should include the following:
Next, invite your initial set of fundraisers from the tool. Ask them to customize their fundraising pages to include their personal stories and experiences. Help them with tips and other materials to reach out to their personal networks.
Watch this tutorial video on how to easily create a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign on Donorbox. You can also share this with your fundraisers to help them customize their fundraising pages.
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A primary role of your event-hosting team is to promote the event and invite more people to participate. Nonprofits can use their social media accounts to advertise the event, create posters and flyers, send emails, and connect with local media to share the event.
Your team, initial fundraisers, and board members must also use their influence to promote the event with individuals and companies in the community.
On the day of your event, it’s time to welcome all participants and also promote your event’s peer-to-peer fundraising. Do it through speeches or posters at the event.
Enable your new participants to easily sign up to fundraise on the spot. With Donorbox Peer-to-Peer, it’s quick and convenient – with a button on your parent campaign page. They can click it and sign up to use their own fundraising page right away!
Plus, you get a free and automatically generated QR code with your campaign, which can be used at the event venue to redirect participants to the campaign page and encourage them to fundraise.
You’ll also want to draw attention to your event’s sponsors and vendors. You can do this with an area for them to add a tent or table and share their products and services. Including these vendors and sponsors also gives event attendees something to do during the run.
Other ways to excite your audience during the run include games, kids’ activities, and musicians and entertainers.
What you do after the event is as important as before and during. Since fun run events often entice new people to participate, you must find ways to connect with these individuals and thank them.
A personalized letter or phone call is an excellent way to do this. Some organizations take time after their events to hold a phone-a-thon where the event team, board members, and other volunteers call and thank every donor. This personal touch can help your organization build relationships and raise more funds in the long run.
You can also host an online event sending invites to all who attended, participated, and donated, and announce your top fundraisers from the fun run event. Offering incentives and prizes to your top performers is also an excellent way to invite more participation for your next fun run.
Fun run fundraisers have become common these days. So you must find ways to make your event more fun and exciting to stand out and encourage more participation.
One of the easiest ways to liven up your fun run is by creating a theme for your event. Nonprofits have developed unique and creative ideas encouraging more participation and bringing media attention to their events. A fun way to add meaning to your event is with a color run or superhero theme.
Color runs douse runners with a different colored powder at each kilometer marker. The runners look like rainbows by the end, and everyone enjoys the fun.
Adding a super-hero theme can help nonprofits promote the work done by the organization and encourage donors to support its beneficiaries. You can also invite participants to dress up as their favorite superheroes and take pictures to share on social media during and after the event.
The strength of a fun run fundraiser is the involvement of its participants. People that sign up to run for these events usually understand that they must raise money from their friends and family but may not know how. Nonprofits that make the fundraising process easy and fun will get a greater response.
Nonprofits can send emails and videos to help explain how to create and customize an online fundraising page. They must also stay in contact with runners to help them share their stories and raise funds. Most people find it uncomfortable to ask for money, but with extra support and prizes, they can get past that fear.
With an easy-to-use peer-to-peer fundraising tool like Donorbox Peer-to-Peer, your fundraisers will quickly set up their fundraising pages. When you invite them to fundraise, Donorbox automatically creates a basic fundraising page for your invitees. They can use it as is or customize it (which is advisable) to start fundraising in minutes!
Competitions between a nonprofit’s fundraisers can add even more excitement and encourage volunteers to reach out and raise money. When soliciting sponsors, you can ask them to offer a prize for your fundraisers in exchange for extra marketing.
As you promote the event and invite people to participate, share information on the competition and details about the prize.
As you share the event with the public to gain more attendees, you can remind runners about the competition and add the top fundraisers to your social media pages. It’s essential to be as hands-on as possible during this process. Your volunteers will do better with more support from your development office.
Donorbox peer-to-peer fundraising pages highlight your top fundraisers (as shown below) at the bottom of the parent campaign page. This way, your top-performing fundraisers feel appreciated and your campaign visitors will also be inspired to sign up to raise money for you.
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When planning your next fun run fundraiser, create SMART goals and keep your team focused on sharing your organization’s mission. Choose the right peer-to-peer fundraising tool and focus on helping your fundraising team with as many fundraising and marketing materials needed as possible.
For more event ideas, visit our articles on walk-a-thon fundraisers or other popular a-thons.
Donorbox makes adding peer-to-peer fundraising to your fundraising strategy simple and convenient for all. Learn about our other effective and powerful fundraising and donor management tools on the website. Sign up to get started today!
Looking for free templates, samples, and other resources for your nonprofit fundraising and events? We have loads of free resources and insightful guides at Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive a curated list of our best resources in your inbox every month.
Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor