All in for Autism Run: Meeting Update – 10th March, 2017

Weekly Key Metrics:

• Registrations (Goal: 3000): 486 – up 10.2%
• Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
• Volunteers (Goal: 243): 90 – 47.5
• New Members: 0
• Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $87,375 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

We have received the event permit from the City of Bellevue.  We have also secured support from MOVIN and 98.9 ROCK have agreed to support event with PSA and Booths, which will boost PR.  Preparations for promotional support (Mayor Proclamation/Company/Discounts) are underway.  Collaterals and T-shirts ordered.

Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)

Notice that the update this week is labeled as Week06 and this shows the status of registration numbers and dollars 6 weeks out from race day.  We now have 486 registered runners/walkers compared with 1,015 runners/walkers a year ago this same time of 6 weeks out.  The situation with respect to dollars is much better as we have $16,375 now compared with $16,284 a year ago.  While it is true that the advantage for this year basically goes away if we look at registration dollars alone and without donations.  This year’s registration dollars (without the donations) equals $15,780 compared with $16,044 a year ago.  In relation to dollars overall, one can say we are just about the same place we were a year ago.

The gain in actual “number of runners/walkers” over the past week shows that the weekly gain this year (from Week07 to Week06) was only 45 as compared with a gain of 58 a year ago.  If we hope to get to the earlier target of 3,000 runners/walkers this year, we obviously have to start increasing these weekly gains very soon.

It is encouraging to see that the average registration value has held up well, actually increasing from $32.15 a week ago to $32.47 last night at midnight.  Part of the reason for this consistently high average registration dollar value is the lack of KIDS signing up.

It is of interest that we have only one KID signed up this year at the Week06 point compared with 13 KID reservations a year ago at the same time.  Where are the KIDS?  A small part of the answer (though not a total explanation) is the fact that 7 of the current 73 registrants under the FAM/GROUP designation are under 14 years old and would likely have signed up as KIDS had they done the individual rather than group registration.  Many more folks are using the group registration process this year than was the case a year ago which makes a precise comparison in this area of KIDS registration (between the two years) a bit difficult.

Sponsorship

We have received major sponsorship agreements from Parallels, Acme Foods, OfferUp and chasing down the others.  Invoices sent out and Howard is chasing down the collections of the sponsorship dollars.

We have a coordinated effort to collect all the sponsor logos this week for inclusion on the website, t-shirts and collateral (major sponsors only).

There are two outstanding sponsors that I will be chasing down this week to ensure they are not left off the t-shirts and website inclusion before the event kicks off.

Steve Luplow will be working with Bellevue Collections to have them attend our club for the April 7^th Proclamation.  I am also working with outreach to Business Chamber and Bellevue Association to secure their support for our Bathe Bellevue in Blue campaign.

Marketing

Marketing is the core area that will be the primary focus for our team.  It is critical that we push much more aggressively here to have a direct impact on our registrations.

• The big win for us this past week is thanks to Chris Boland who has secured the support of MOVIN and 98.9 ROCK radio stations support for our events with PSAs and being present with their booths. We will most certainly tie this into the bigger campaign around the Mayor’s Proclamation.
• Social media campaigns – we are seeing some impact in this area, where there has been pick up in the primary areas of focus (Linkedin, Facebook and @BestDarnClub). I think one of the drivers for donations, mentioned in Howard’s analysis, is coming from our focus in this area.  Paul Cunnington will be picking up this activity for us now that he has returned from his travels, so we can have a more dedicated resource on this area.  This will be done in combination with Orswell Events support through their social channels and it is my hope to leverage Zach Scott’s in the next campaign with them, as well as the promotions for our sponsors and discount promotions.
• Mayoral Proclamation (Bathe Bellevue in Blue): we are going to have our work cut out to make this the cornerstone event for our PR blitz. This weekend I will work on a plan, which will be based on the great input from John Uppendahl that we can then work on delegating out the tasks to the team for its execution.  We have four weeks in which to make this happen and it is very do-able.
• Our press releases are now available on the website, so please feel free to leverage them in posts across our social media channels. They are located at the bottom of this page: http://allinforautism.org/event-info/.
• We also started our reach out to company’s who are sponsoring the event to leverage them in promoting our event. I have meetings with Amazon, OfferUp and Nintendo planned for this coming week to get the ball rolling.  We will need all other sponsor companies to be approached to do the same.  Furthermore, I am working with Zach Scott to get the support from the Sounders organization to raise the profile of our event through their community.
• Collaterals ordered. Orswell events will be creating the new posters and flyers for us with the view that we will have them within the week.  We will want to develop a distribution plan for the new collateral to help raise the visibility of the event across the community.  These will be delivered at the next club meeting, so we can pass them out to the membership.

Internal Promotions

Continuing to push on the theme for member engagement around securing two volunteers and twenty-two participants for the race.  I will be sending out another call-to-action email to the membership for their support (already sent out an update to Linkedin group).

Paul Osborn has been working on the internal club poster for the All in for Autism event, which will include our sponsor logos, etc.  This will be a motivating tool that we can leverage in our internal promotion…perhaps another skit.

Rotary Club outreach – it will be a good time for us to visit clubs in the area to promote our event.   Plan for making this happen will be beneficial and again we will want to engage members, once the new collateral have been delivered, to make this happen.

Logistics

T-shirts have been ordered now that that the volumes and varieties have been worked out.  We will be ordering 2,500 t-shirts in the navy blue and the artwork will be provide by Orswell events.

I have asked Orswell Events to get the posters and new cards published, so they can be distributed out through our channels in advance of the event.  I will find out when the delivery date is due and communicate to the club.

Colleen has been busy on the outreach for booth sponsors.  She has sent out the call to action for booths sponsors with a view that we can secure support from local business in participating in the Race Village with their booths.

Finally

If there is anything that any of you want to get involved with, please let me know.  There is plenty of work to go around and there is no need to be shy if you are interested in making a contribution.

Onwards and forwards – let’s get our registrations in and the preparations for the race going.  It is only six more weeks to the big day!