Weekly Key Metrics:
- Registrations (Goal: 2,500): 621 – up 17.2%
- Sponsorship Totals (Goal: $70,000): $71,000 – no change
- Volunteers (Goal: 243): 90 – no change
- New Members: 0
- Total Amount Raised (Goal: $120,000): $91623 vs. $116,411 (2016 Total)
Summary
April 7th will be the press event for the Mayor’s Proclamation. The team is now coordinating our effort to make this event happen in the most effective manner. T-shirts are designed in the hands of the vendor. New posters and flyers were delivered to the club. We are starting to see engagement from outreach in registrations with a 17.2% bump this week, which is encouraging. We have secured prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place positions in the 5K and 10K from Kendra Scott.
Registrations (Howard’s Analysis)
We currently have 621 registered participants. This compares with 1,176 registrants at this same time a year ago. Our growth rate in registrations in this 2017 year is clearly behind the growth in registration from last year. This past week saw an increase in 91 registrants. The comparable increase in registrations for the same week last year was 103.
Fortunately, the dollars raised in the registration data base for the 2017 year is fairly comparable to that of the 2016 year. Notice that the amount raised at this time in 2017 (exactly four weeks out) is $20,623. This compares favorably with the $20,387 raised in 2016 at the same time. The average price of the registrations sold on the website so far this year is $33.21. This compares with an average price of only $17.34 a year ago.
We are now poised to make a significant push forward with registrations in these last four weeks. If we can reach close to our current target of 2,500 registrations and keep our average sale price above $30, we should be able to significantly increase the dollars raised in this year’s event.
Sponsorship
We have engaged Kendra Scott as sponsors for our 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes for the runners from the 5K and 10K events this year. We will be promoting Kendra Scott through our participant packages and via the announcements, so that participants can visit the store, where we will receive 20% from any purchases made.
Adam Mihlstin has successful persuaded the facilities people at T-Mobile to turn the lights to Blue for the month of April, which is brilliant. Now Adam is working on securing someone from T-Mobile community team, so we can tie this back into promotional activities for our event with them being a sponsor.
We have confirmed that we will have six VIPs from Bellevue Collection for the April 7th Proclamation event. We will also be reaching out to other sponsors to see if we can invite them to attend our meeting as well. The more the merrier.
Marketing
We have confirmed that the April 7th meeting will be dedicated to the promotion of the All in for Autism run. It will be open to the press and we will be focusing on raising the visibility of our beneficiaries’ causes, incorporating speeches from our celebrities (Zach Scott and Dennis Bounds) and sponsors, before launching into the Mayor’s proclamation. At the end, it is our intent to award Mimi Siegel with the All in for Autism Award, which will also be the call for nominations for next year’s award.
To this end, we have a number of activities that we are coordinating around with making sure we have the Glendale meeting room setup correctly (press friendly), confirmation of guests and securing the details we need for the press in terms of B-roll and packages. It will be a change up from prior meetings, but it is important for us to make sure we get the most from this event to drive up registrations in the last three weeks before the race. More specific details will be coming out to the team next week.
In the meantime, here are other details from the ongoing outreach that has been underway this past week:
- Kindering Gala (3/25) had a promotion for our event in their auction brochure – we are seeing some increases in registrations as a result.
- Social media campaigns – we promoted an end of month 10% discount with $50 gift card from SHOES-n-FEET this week. The promotion ends this evening. Pushed through our Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook channels.
- New posters and flyers have been delivered to the club for distribution. We will also want to get them to the Boys & Girls clubs, Rotary Clubs and other venues to increase visibility – all of you can volunteer to help here, please get back to me.
- I have a meeting confirmed with the Bellevue Reporter Ryan Murray for next week and will begin to lay the ground work for our event’s promotion through their newspaper and to have them attend our proclamation event.
- We have the new press release ready to go, once we have secured support from T-Mobile. Here is the current iteration for you to read: https://www.dropbox.com/s/270l5tz15u0vmhd/BBRC%20Press%20Release%20v2.docx?dl=0. We need to run this by our beneficiaries and sponsors this week for their approval. I do not envisage any issue.
- Joellen has worked with Eastside Pathways to have them promote our event through their channels with the result that they will be pushing our details out.
- We have created an email JPEG that can be used by our members to reach out to their network via email to drive up participation. This was sent out to all of our members last week.
- New Tech Northwest have promoted our race through their newsletter for a third time to their network of 28,000 registered email recipients this week.
- Zach Scott has passed on the community outreach person at the Sounders to me. I have reached out to them to seek their support in promoting our event via their mailing list. We will also be taking up the opportunity to use the open booth from Orswell Events to promote our event at the Sounders Run on 9th April – I will be looking for volunteers to help me hand out leaflets and posters on the day.
- Special Olympics Washington will be promoting our event via their community of 30,000 registered supporters on email.
- We have been seeing some uptake from our sponsors in pushing through their networks and we will continue to work with them to leverage this as an asset for registrations.
- Neil Bretvick has secured support from his firm, Hellam Varon & Co., to feature “All in for Autism” as their cause for April, 2017. To that end, they will have their people choose the option of either a cash contribution or to volunteer in some capacity, or participate in the run. This is a great example of how our members can make a difference.
- Coach Akana from Sammamish high school football had a meeting with his coaching staff and booster club, and they are all on board to participate in the 10K run on April 23. They will have raise sponsor dollars, which they will donate to the club after the monies have been collected.
- I met with the Forest Ridge Interact club this past week and encouraged their participation in supporting the race with volunteers and participants. They will be leaning in and supporting us with both. It was good to see them attend our club this week and reaffirm their commitment.
- John Uppendahl is working on the 7th April PR plan and we will be sharing this with everyone to make sure we are all hands on deck to make this event successful. This is our big shout out to the entire community, so we need to make sure we are working hard over the next couple of weeks to pull this event together and make it successful. This will help us really hit our goal of 2,500 participants.
Logistics
Our team in Steve Roberts, Steve Luplow and Orswell Events are moving forward on the course planning and logistics. Our biggest challenge remains the start and finish of the event, where we will need to manage the runners and traffic. With new administrators from the City involved, we will need to go by the book until we have them “trained” for the future.
T-shirts are being produced – here is the artwork for you to view: https://www.dropbox.com/s/59v2n6med0lsuw9/V10929_BellevueBreakfastRotaryClub_Mens_E2_SS_RoyalBlue_Proof_edit_V2.pdf?dl=0. They are going to look good and they have our club figured prominently on the front, so we can raise our profile.
Joellen indicated that this year we will not be required to notify all the property owners along the route if we have the run notification boards’ setup around the route. This is great news and saves us time.
We do have an issue with the Eastside Prep school not being able to lend us their buses for the event this year. Steve Luplow has alerted me to the issue. I will be following up with the school directly to see what I can do to get them to reconsider.
This area of activity will start to ramp up and our need for volunteers will be high as this gets sorted out.
Finally
We have a lot of moving parts over the next two weeks as we focus on making sure our PR and related activities all come together. It is going to be a huge driver for the registrations and, ultimately, for the amount of money we can raise to support Kindering, Special Olympics and our Rotary projects. We will all need to do what we can to make this come together successfully and ensure that the momentum it generates helps us get the number of participants over the 2,500 level.
My thanks to you all for the contributions to date – you have all been brilliant in terms of ideas and getting things done. I truly appreciate the support.
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