DONNA Marathon Uses GiveSignup to Unleash Generosity
DONNA Marathon Uses GiveSignup to Unleash Generosity
The DONNA Marathon Weekend recently held its 16th race weekend in Jacksonville, Florida with more than 5,000 participant registrations and at least 10,000 supporting spectators. The DONNA Marathon is key event put on by the DONNA Foundation to honor those facing the challenges of breast cancer and to raise funds towards ending breast cancer.
A significant portion of the DONNA Foundation’s fundraising comes from its signature events like the DONNA Marathon, and the organization raised an impressive $273,000 with this year’s DONNA Marathon Weekend. Many participants are breast cancer survivors, currently battling breast cancer, or have a family member or friend who has had breast cancer.
The DONNA Marathon, which spanned over three days in early February, used a combination of GiveSignup’s fundraising capabilities, TicketSignup’s free ticketing and event day technology, and RunSignup’s registration for this year’s Marathon Weekend. Here are some highlights showcasing how the DONNA Marathon leveraged GiveSignup’s fundraising capabilities to optimize their event and up-level their fundraising.
Bringing It All Together with FUNDRAISING:
Changing registration providers is a big decision for any event, but especially for mid-size and large events, and to change means there is a compelling reason for making the switch. DONNA Marathon made the switch this year and we asked Amanda why they chose to transition to our platform. She shared there were many reasons, but the main reason came down to the fundraising features of GiveSignup available and that they integrated so well with the entire platform.
Amanda shared; “We are a philanthropic organization and it is important the registration platform integrated with the donation platform. RunSignup and GiveSignup integration was key for us, and we had an immediate uptick in fundraising. We turned on registration in July of 2022 and fundraising was immediate and active.”
They were also able to leverage the integration with Facebook fundraising and participants raised $23,000 through Facebook participant posts.
RunSignup and GiveSignup integration was key for us and we had an immediate uptick in fundraising.
Amanda Napolitano, Executive Director of the DONNA Foundation
“We really liked the integration with registration with fundraising and that it tied in race team members together. The process is seamless for the participants and the tools are easy to use. I also liked the presentment of fundraising pages with participant personal stories and photos. People donate to people more than to a foundation. RunSignup made it easy for participants to share a compelling story and far more people shared their stories. Our PR team was then able to comb through fundraisers and reach out to participants for various media interviews and we profiled fundraisers in social media encouraging people to donate to specific participants. Instead of asking support for the foundation, we asked people to support the individuals. This is a much more effective approach.”
Fundraising Tip for Event Organizers: People donate to people. Not to a foundation or company. So, let your participants be the face for fundraising.
One of the main pulls for the DONNA Foundation was the advanced fundraising technology GiveSignup has to offer events with a philanthropic focus. Their successful raising of more than $260,000 means they are already more than half way towards meeting their annual goal of $500,000! Organizers offered three ways to support their efforts: Participate, Fundraise, or Donate. Here are some examples of them putting the technology into action.
Starting with their website, DONNA Marathon was able to leverage our website builder to build a page that connected to their branding, highlighted key goals for the event, and added live components that engaged supporters. In addition to signing up for the race, a supporter was able to also select if they wanted to fundraise and/or donate from the main page. They also leveraged a donation bar to showcase how they were doing against their donation goal. Additionally they showcased top fundraisers and top fundraising teams in real time, added a Social Sharing section that led your participants to share your event with their friends via multiple social channels, and highlighted key sponsors, all on their website.
Participants could fundraise as an individual or create or join a Team Fundraiser. The social aspect of teams helps to create energy and motivation to unlock more giving and help raise additional funds. Below also shows how the event offered donations, choosing to leverage custom donation levels to further connect their supporters to the cause by showing what their donation would help cover. Here you can see what each level could cover from helping a family secure transportation to a treatment to helping pay medical bills.
The DONNA Foundation then publicly shared the status of overall fundraising, by individual, and by team fundraiser to provide recognition and help to encourage additional donations and fundraising efforts
Bringing It All Together
DONNA Marathon’s multifaceted approach in using GiveSignup, TicketSignup, & RunSignup for their 2023 unlocked opportunities that helped support their event weekend’s success. This event is a great example of how a large event was able to seamlessly make a switch to a new platform and leverage our entire suite of free and flexible event tools: RunSignup’s registration, GiveSignup’s fundraising tools, TicketSignup’s open-ended ticket sites, and the EventDay checkin apps; and used them to produce an enjoyable and memorable event. Learn more about additional ways DONNA was able to use our full suite of free and flexible event tools on the RunSignup blog and the TicketSignup blog.
