James and Shelly Harris, creators of RaceJoy and long-time RunSignup employees, recently hosted their inaugural race: The Firecracker 5K Festival at Chickasaw Point. With years of race experience from multiple perspectives, this was our first time managing the entire process. We chose the 4th of July as this is clearly one of the biggest race days of the year. As long-time employees at RunSignup, our familiarity with RunSignup’s tools allowed us to bring a big-event experience to our community, utilizing features that most first-time organizers might overlook. We thought we’d share our perspective on putting on a first time race and raising money through sponsorships, donations, and shirt sales.
Our primary goal was to create a quality event that offered a special experience for our community and 4th of July visitors. We wanted to host more of a 4th of July family festival that would draw more people to the 5K, but it really depended on the sponsors and money raised. In the end, we were able to provide a very cherished experience for many families that included a successful 5K, 1-Miler run/walk and festival full of family fun activities, including “games on the green”, an epic water slide, face painting, and plenty of water balloons to keep everyone cool, food trucks, free food options, and mimosas.
Sponsorship Value Proposition: Charity vs. Marketing
Our event’s proceeds supported the Chickasaw Point community’s recreation fund supporting things like new pickleball courts and walking trail. While this appealed to residents, it would not be a strong selling point for sponsors. Therefore, we focused on the marketing promotion opportunity for sponsors to increase their awareness with the local community and the influx of 4th of July visitors. Sponsor promotion would reach the 1,000+ residents of Chickasaw Point community and a minimum of 300 people who would attend the festival. You can view the sponsor levels here. Really, we just used this as a starting point in discussions and kept things super flexible.
Key Takeaway: Your spectators are just as important as your participants. Not only are they potential future registrants, they are your sponsor’s audience. The more you can embrace your participants’ family and friends, the greater attendance you will have and the more sponsors you are likely to attract.
In-Kind vs. Monetary Donations
In the event’s first year, in-kind donations (food, race bag items, prizes, etc) were the sponsorships we first focused on as these helped to provide a memorable experience for participants and festival goers. The more we added to the festival, the more attendees we could attract which would lead to increased word-of-mouth for the following year and value for our sponsors. So, we mapped out some priority items we’d need to offer a 4th of July celebration. Notable in-kind sponsorships included Munchkins and coffee from Dunkin’, homemade ice cream, a start/finish balloon arch, police presence, event equipment, prizes, and race packet giveaways.
Monetary donations helped cover race and festival costs. Some sponsors liked sponsoring specific items, like the very popular water slide or providing free watermelons. This also helped with sponsor promotion, allowing us to highlight specific aspects of the festival while recognizing sponsors. We plan to adjust sponsor pricing next year to offer more of these types of sponsorships.
Finding a Win/Win: Successful Sponsorship Approaches
We created a list of target sponsors that fit naturally with our event and with their business focus. For example, Phantom Fireworks, a local fireworks company, identified with our Firecracker and 4th of July theme became our main sponsor who also provided 2,000 fireworks for the start of the 5K. Dunkin’, with a new store nearby Seneca, was another natural fit, providing Munchkins, coffee, prizes, and coupons for race bags. In addition, Chickasaw Point’s community restaurant and golf course provided the prizes for the top finishers and discounts for the race bags.
Part of the festival included a Tour of Homes event that offered great opportunity for visitors and local communities to experience Chickasaw Point and for real estate-related companies to promote themselves to a targeted audience. Sponsors included realtor organizations, home inspectors, real estate lawyers, and financiers.
We found the most success in securing sponsors by visiting potential sponsors’ businesses in person, asking for the manager or owner, and having initial face-to-face conversations. Calls and emails just didn’t seem to get us anywhere. Some had established processes for sponsorships and others were more of informal conversations. Bringing printouts of sponsorship opportunities helped provide tangible evidence of the value we were offering. This canvassing of local businesses doubled as a race flyer distribution opportunity.
Sponsors: Your Marketing Partner
Sponsors are your promotional army. Provide them with content, graphics, and registration links for newsletters, emails, and social media and request they help build awareness. We worked with our sponsors to explore ways they could help promote the event, like mentions in their newsletters, emails to their database, and social media posts. Frequently, sponsors would share our Facebook posts on their wall – especially when we tagged them. This mutual promotion helped to expand the awareness for our event to audiences we did not have access to.
Greatest Challenge: Time
Like many race directors, we didn’t have the time for extensive sponsor outreach and follow-up. However, for our first year, we were happy with all the in-kind donations we received and the total amount raised. For next year, we’re forming a Sponsor Volunteer Committee dedicated to securing sponsors and managing relationships, starting months out.
RunSignup’s Sponsor Tools
RunSignup offers easy-to-use sponsor tools, which we fully utilized:
- Sponsor Levels and Custom Web Page: We researched sponsor pricing, built pricing levels, and created a web page called Sponsor Opportunities. This made it easy to print flyers for potential sponsors.
- Sponsor Promotion Tools: After securing sponsorships, we added their information to the Manage Sponsors area on our RunSignup race dashboard, including logos, description, and URLs. Under the Setup Display area, we chose to have the sponsors automatically appear at the bottom of all pages on the website along with a dedicated sponsor page. RunSignup’s email tools allowed us to promote sponsors easily by simply selecting the sponsor widget when crafting the email.
- Sponsor Management and Invoicing: We found the Sponsor Management tool to be very helpful to keep track of sponsors, contact info, and payment status. Plus, we issued invoices and some chose to complete the payment online, which actually made it easier for us in that we didn’t have to follow up on checks.
Festival Donations and Shirt Sales
Even if your event is not a charity, RunSignup’s donation tools can be used to encourage people to donate to help cover event costs. We enabled RunSignup’s donation tools so people would be prompted at checkout to help cover the Festival costs and raised $525 in donations just from the event website. We also stationed Festival Donation jars throughout the festival and collected more than $500 in donations during the event.
The Firecracker 5K race shirt was very popular. It was included in the price for the 5K participants and offered as an add-on for the 1-Milers. Volunteers and others purchased $600 worth of shirts from the event website store we set up. We labeled the store page Purchase Shirt to make it easier for people to find. We adjusted the inventory in the store as new registrations and purchases took place.
Thank You Sponsors, Volunteers, and All Who Joined Us!
Overall, the Firecracker 5K and Celebration at Chickasaw Point was a great success, offering a festive atmosphere for everyone involved. Our sponsors received substantial value from targeted promotion, and we made sure to personally thank each one, highlighting the various ways their support enhanced the event. We hope this lays the foundation for future collaborations. Thank you to our sponsors, the 65 volunteers who helped to put on such a spectacular event, and all those who joined us for our first Firecracker 5K!
