All in for Autism Run: Meeting Update - 22nd January 2017

Key Metrics:

• Registrations: 187 (Goal: 3000)
• Sponsorship Totals: $51,000 (Goal: $70,000)
• Volunteers: 14 (Goal: 219)
• New Members: 0

Summary

A quick update from the run meeting at this past week’s BBRC gathering.  We are making progress in a number of areas that will feed into our key metrics above.  However, the overriding theme is that we need to get cracking on a number of efforts this month to help generate the momentum we need - – this is our call to action now we have just over three months to D-Day!

The key metrics show that we are slow on registrations compared to last year.  We are making good progress on sponsorships, in spite of some setbacks that include Childrens and Concur not renewing their commitments.  We do need to drum up volunteers and need to begin our outreach to the community.

New members will become more relevant as our event’s momentum gathers steam and we are able to raise our presence within the community.

Course Update

Jeff Orswell confirmed the update with respect to the City seeking to keep as much of the routes from the previous year as possible in place.  Jeff is going to work with Steve Luplow to move the Race Village to one of the parking structures on the north side of 4th between Bell Way and 100th.  Jeff is looking to close out with Steve Luplow on what the Bellevue Square will allow for those areas.

Summary of route: The Start/Finish moves to 4th.  It will make both races a little longer.  We’ll start running west on 4th, turn south on 100th, turn east on 2nd and from there the courses will be the same as last year.  We’ll then return the same route in reverse (Bell Way to 2nd to 100th to 4th).  Once Jeff hears back from Steve Luplow on Bellevue Square decision, then Jeff will schedule a follow-up meeting with the City and have Steve and Jeff represent us to finalize it all.

Sponsorship

We have had two wins in that Starbucks confirmed their commitment at $7,500 and Amazon has agreed to come in at $5,000 as a new sponsor – this makes up for the loss of Seattle’s and Concur this year.  We are working the reach out to the tech community and other business with a view that we can also secure other participants for supporting our event.

We have heard back from Symmetra who are considering the possibility of coming in as a sponsor and we will let you know when that decision comes through.  We have also found another way to approach Smartsheet (via Chris Boland) to come in after their internal people said no; we will keep you informed.  Other technology companies have been approached and we will keep you updated.  Our timeline is to have these all locked in before 2/15 to allow for the production of collaterals.

Please continue to rally around John and Jenny in securing support for sponsors for this year’s event.  We have an aggressive goal and we are making good progress with the $51,000 already secured and that leaves us only $19,000 short of the goal.

 Marketing

Our initial promotion of the event with respect to early registration has generated 187 registrations.  This is significantly behind from where we were last year.  It is clear we have to take a bolder and more aggressive approach with raising the visibility of the event over the crowded running event market.  To this end, there a couple of big ideas we will be pursuing to help us generate buzz:

• Securing a personality for the Race: I will be speaking with Zach Scott (Mr. Sounder of the Sounders) next week – 1/24/17. The goal is to secure Zach to start our race and to leverage his name in promoting the event, especially in light of the Sounders MLS win.
• Securing support from the City of Bellevue to declare April 23^rd “All in for Autism” Day. Leverage this to promote the event through local media stations.
• Raise our profile within the Technology Community. This will happen through outreach to technology community organizations like New Tech Northwest, Washington Technology Industry Association and others.
• We will generate 1-2 press releases a month that raise the visibility of the event, our sponsors and the progress we are making to generate engagement. Our first release will go out next week: All in for Autism Announcement Press Release.

I met with Brett Green (one of the leaders of New Tech Northwest) to secure his support for promoting our event through his community – there are regularly over 300 people attending each of their monthly events in Bellevue and Seattle.  Brett agreed to promote our event via his newsletter and we are welcome to promote it at the event themselves.  We will also be promoting our event through his volunteer calendar.  This will help with our intent to reach out to the Tech Community.

We also want to kick off the internal club promotion to generate excitement within our membership for this event, so Carmela and Wendi are on point for helping us organize around this for the next 2-3 months.  Look out for opportunities to volunteer in the skits.

Finally, we will need to increase our promotion of the event through our social media outlets.  This will need to be organized and there are some opportunities for us to have club members involved, while also using Meetup to generate enthusiasm with the large running groups in the area.

City of Bellevue

A huge thank to you Joellen Monson who has completed the work of getting our documentation in place with the City of Bellevue.  It really has been a challenge this year with respect to the details around the running courses not being locked down.  Joellen has worked closely to make sure the City remains supportive and responsive to our needs.  I will be dropping off the completed agreement and insurance with the City next week, so we can move forward on securing their permission.

Volunteers

I will be meeting with Alison Morton from Kindering this coming Wednesday to discuss how Kindering can support our needs for the race with respect to volunteers, runners and buzz.  I will update you all once this meeting has taken place.

The next step will be to reach out to those schools and Rotary youth organizations that we are involved with to make sure we can secure support from them for volunteering and promotion of the event.  Sooner is better, now is best J.

Event Day Activities

We are looking at alternatives for t-shirt production in light of Brooks not being able to support us this year.  Brooks did offer to produce our t-shirts at $6.50 and although generous, we think we can get a better price, so Jeff will be providing us with options to make a decision on.

We have also asked Orswell events to move forward on the production of the Race Banners, once the City has confirmed our permission of the event.