All in for Autism Run: Meeting Update – 3rd March, 2017

Weekly Key Metrics:

• Registrations (Goal: 3000): 441 – up 7.5%
• Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
• Volunteers (Goal: 243): 61 – no change
• New Members: 0
• Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $85,280 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)

Summary

Internal skit kicked off to motivate our membership into actively promoting registrations (each member is being asked to find 2 volunteers and 22 runners).  Zach Scott spoke to our club as part of his involvement with us and he confirmed that he will actively promote our race.  We have made some decisions related to the logistics for the event that relate to the Race Village and our start/finish on the route.

Registrations

We currently have 441 registered runners/walkers this year compared to 957 a year ago.  Again, the dollar comparison fares much better with a registration dollar total of $14,280 this year compared with $14,838 a year ago.  In other words, our dollars in registration this year are only $558 less than they were a year ago at this same time.  We still of course have some catchup to do.

We should also observe that during this coming week (Week07 to Week06) a year ago we picked up an additional 58 registrants with a total additional dollar amount of $1,446.  This means a stepped-up rate of registration and dollars must occur now.  Let’s hope the challenge that Wendy and Carmella gave at the meeting this past week (22 registrants per member) starts to hit home with the troops.

Sponsorship

We have update the website with the logos for many of our sponsors.  We are in process of securing the last few that we did not have logos for, so that they can be put onto the sponsorship page.

We are working on locking down the major sponsor agreements, so we can begin the process of invoicing for payment and to also engage our sponsors to promote the event through their own internal channels.  This will help support our own efforts in driving up participation in the event.

We are also locking down on a couple of sponsors to hopefully close out this effort.

Marketing

We are continuing to build on our momentum for marketing.  The key updates are as follows:

• Established campaign on Linkedin (using their $50 credit) and seeing some success in terms of reach.  This is in combination with a regular schedule of publishing content to the group site:

As can be seen in the chart, the campaign has been having the desired effect in terms of  engagement and traffic.  In the meantime, we need to continue with the Facebook, Website, Linkedin and Twitter promotions – to this end, I will be working with a colleague of mine in the office who will help to push this through a broader set of channels.

• Zach Scott spoke at the club this week and through anecdotal feedback it was well received. Zach has confirmed that he will be willing to work with us in terms of promotion on press releases, social media and connecting us with the Sounders organization to get the word out.  I will work with the media team to get this done.
• Kindering have confirmed their support for the Mayoral Proclamation on 7^th April by having some families in attendance to provide the human interest component to the press who will be present. We now need to craft the press release and organize the logistics to make this event successful.  One big part of this will be working with the Bellevue Collections to see if we can get the blue lights turned on for the weekend in the buildings (Alex and Steve to work on this one).
• Our press releases will be published to the All in for Autism website, so we can leverage them from here in our promotions, since the local media has not picked anything up yet.
• We have two discount promotions left for the event:
  • One before the end of March, which we will combine with the SHOES-n-FEET voucher. This will be for the $5 discount and it will be tied to the Stride into Spring Theme
  • We do one last promotion for the Mayoral Proclamation on the 7th April and it will end at midnight on 9th April. This will be a $5 discount in the support of Autism Month
• New Tech Northwest promoted our event once more through their newsletter (which goes to 28,000 email aliases) and I am hoping for a bump in registrations as a result.  Here is the promotion itself:

Internal Promotions

My thanks to Wendi, Carmela and Chris for their internal skit – “It’s All about the Numbers” - this past Friday.  It was both fun and a great call to action for the club membership to find 2 volunteers and 22 runners.  The good news is that this is far easier to motivate people to do rather than asking for funds, so it is our hope that the club responds.  I sent a follow up email to all the membership on Friday evening to further underscore the value of the skit’s message and to call them into action.

Logistics

T-shirts price is good and includes landed costs.  I just need to work out the volume and variety needed across participants.  We will go with blue t-shirts and working on the artwork and logos for the back of the shirt.  My intent is to have this order placed next week.

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.

We made the decision to have the Race Village in the carpark area, rather than try to plan for the availability of the park space.  There is too much risk to the organization of the event to consider alternatives at this juncture.  We also have a challenging start/finish with this course that will require additional coordination on the day to make sure we can manage the flow of traffic and participants during the event.  Steve Roberts and Steve Luplow, in conjunction with Orswell Events, will work out details to make this work.

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.

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