About Tunnel to Towers Foundation
Tunnel to Towers Foundation (T2T) began its fundraising journey with a single 5K event honoring firefighter Stephen Siller, who sacrificed his life on 9/11.
Today, events are at the heart of Tunnel to Towers’ mission to honor and support America’s heroes, helping the organization raise over $1 billion to date. By adopting RunSignup’s all-in-one platform for event registration, donations, and fundraising, T2T has efficiently scaled its events while simplifying operations and enhancing fundraiser engagement.
Events Drive Growth and Impact
Since the original 5K, T2T has expanded from the single 5K to over 80 run, walk, and climb events nationwide. The Foundation also hosts golf outings, concerts, pickleball tournaments, trap shooting events, and more. The inaugural NYC 5K drew 1,500 participants in 2002; today, it welcomes over 30,000 each year. Signature moments, like the NYC 5K’s route retracing Stephen’s final steps through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, accompanied by banners and photos of first responders and service members lost in the war on terror, are powerful reminders of the Foundation’s cause.
Furthermore, events raise critical funds, increase visibility, and attract corporate sponsors. These funds allowed T2T to expand their impact and launch major initiatives like the In the Line of Duty Program for injured veterans, first responders, and Gold Star families. As people see T2T’s impact on members of their own community, new locations step up to host their own events. That momentum fuels a cycle of growth and giving to help more heroes.
Scaling Events with an All-In-One Platform
As Tunnel to Towers expanded its events nationwide, managing two separate platforms for registration and fundraising became inefficient. The split system required manual work and coordination between tools, which increased complexity and hindered fundraising event growth. Tunnel to Towers needed automated fundraising page creation when participants signed up for an event to reduce the foundation’s manual workload and simplify the participant experience. More importantly, they needed a fundraising-first platform with key event features, including dynamic bib assignment, teams, offline check-ins, and more. Finally, they needed a platform that would let them expand to new locations. This included an efficient way to create events with Tunnel to Towers branding, as well as a way to have overall organization access with the ability to delegate limited access to local volunteers.
“RunSignup is like a Swiss Army knife,” said Vincent D’Amico, Senior Systems Administrator.
“It has what you need to solve any sort of event problem.”
In addition to simplifying the participant experience, RunSignup helps Tunnel to Towers efficiently scale their event portfolio. Three key features make it easy for T2T to manage more than 80 fundraising events each year.
1. Copying Events
When setting up a new location, T2T copies an existing event. This automatically brings over the event setup, branding, and settings, while making it easy to customize the details for the new location. “Program managers are able to save hours replicating events,” said Vincent.
2. Renewing Events
Bringing back an event with RunSignup’s easy renewals is seamless, plus T2T gets the added benefit of year-over-year reporting and analytics. “There are so many moving parts when you are setting up the same event year over year – updating waivers, changing dates. But once you have a single event inside RunSignup, it makes everything else so easy.”
3. Access
With RunSignup, the foundation’s internal team can view data across all events on the platform. At the local volunteer level, T2T can easily add limited access so that volunteers can view data and update certain settings for their location without seeing any other T2T events. Since RunSignup is free, there are no per user costs. “It was critical to find a unified solution that empowers Foundation staff to efficiently collaborate and coordinate efforts internally and with our volunteer event directors,” said Caroline Magyarits, Director of Marketing and Communications.
Raising More with Smarter Tools
RunSignup helps Tunnel to Towers raise more money with a modern, all-in-one fundraising event experience tailored for both participants and admins. The integration of registration, donations, and fundraising in a single workflow has increased fundraising participation and eliminated manual work to manage participants and fundraisers across two different systems. Features like team tracking, autocharge for fundraiser minimums, customizable fundraising pages, and dynamic, real-time leaderboards add enhanced fundraising engagement capabilities.
Furthermore, RunSignup’s real-time data and analytics allow the T2T team to optimize campaigns mid-season. Geotargeted marketing, backed by registration and fundraising insights, helps the Foundation identify growth opportunities and deploy budget where it matters most. Whether launching a new event in a promising city or scaling back efforts in underperforming areas, RunSignup’s data tools support strategic, mission-driven decisions to help T2T raise more.
How T2T Simplifies Complex Event Management with RunSignup
Managing 80+ events per year – some with tens of thousands of participants – requires more than just basic registration and fundraising tools. RunSignup has purpose-built solutions for complex event needs, with 15 years of building a scalable product (with more than 2,000 software releases each year) that more than 30,000 events use. These are some of the key features that make T2T’s event management easier and take them to the next level:
- CheckIn App: Checking in more than 30,000 people for a race is not easy. However, RunSignup’s CheckIn App solves T2T’s key problem. With spotty connection, T2T relies heavily on RunSignup’s offline capability to continue checking participants in and syncing the data when there is connectivity.
Furthermore, the CheckIn App enables fundraising team captains to efficiently check in for their entire team. Plus the app can be configured to display key fundraising data for a personalized check-in experience. - Reserved Entries for Group Registration: Perfect for corporate sponsors and fundraising teams. T2T can send a private registration link that auto-assigns participants to the correct team, collects waivers, and creates fundraising pages. It’s fast, flexible, and eliminates manual follow-ups. Plus custom pricing accommodates groups and sponsors that pay by check or want to contribute more than the registration fee.
- Subdomains for Consistent Branding: Rather than redirecting participants to a RunSignup domain, Tunnel to Towers maintains its brand in all aspects of event pages. For example, https://nycrun.t2t.org/. This simplifies national marketing efforts and creates a cohesive experience for participants.
Growing with the Right Partner
For Tunnel to Towers, RunSignup has been more than just software. It’s been a strategic partner. From fast event renewal and replication to seamless team fundraising tools, the platform has enabled the Foundation to grow without adding unnecessary complexity or overhead. Most importantly, the support from the RunSignup team has stood out.
“Honestly, it’s not only been the platform. It’s the communication from the RunSignup team and the attention to detail that you put into the product. Working with Sean Callahan, Nancy Caviness, Bruce Kratz, and more team members has been amazing. RunSignup listens to our feedback and incorporates it into incremental improvements that continue to make our experience better.”
The simplicity and flexibility of RunSignup has even benefited non-event teams at the foundation like marketing and PR, offering easy access to consistent data for outreach and storytelling. As T2T implements Salesforce in the coming months and years, RunSignup’s support and open API continue to make RunSignup the right partner for long term foundation growth. For a lean team managing a growing national organization, these efficiencies are invaluable. “There are no guessing games with RunSignup,” Vincent summarizes.