Walkathon Maven

The three Ts of walkathons are tables, tents and toilets.
If you saw my previous post regarding my fave porta pottie names, then you saw that you gotta have them at an event.  Would you ever invite guests to your home with a broken bathroom?  Never!

Once the potties are delivered to your event, gently ask an intern or new staff member to visit the potties and make sure they have enough paper. Give them a duct tape bracelet (always a lovely event accessory!) and send them to work decorating the inside of the potties with some messaging.  You have a trapped audience, so use the time to your advantage!

Thank the walkers for attending the event! Share some factoids about your organization.

Most important potty protocol – make sure the pottie doors open on the opposite side of the walker traffic. Nobody likes a pedi-jam due to the opening of pottie doors into walker foot traffic. Plus, a waiting line may form and completely block the walk route.

Consider this a potty public service announcement.

What a week for debates!

Great Debate Deux – should a walkathon be 5k or 5 miles?

The not-so-great answer is…. It depends.

When a client asks me the 5K or 5 mile question, I first ask them a bunch of questions:

Here are three (of many)!

1.  How many walkers will you have?

500 walkers will work well with a 5K, but may spread out too much over 5 miles for a cohesive event.

5,000 walkers may overwhelm a 5K route if you have a defined start time.  Sidewalk spillage. (Oh yeah, I said spillage!)

50,000 walkers will require 5 miles and a rolling start so that your peeps can walk with a decent gait.  Baby steps for 5 miles is not customer friendly.

2. How much time do you have?

Most walkers will take 1 to 1.5 hours to complete a 5K route and 1.5 to 3 hours to complete a 5 mile route.

These average times will be longer with an increase in participants, since you will need to move to a rolling start once you hit a certain amount of walkers.

3. Do you already have a location in mind?

Many cities already have event sites where previous walks or runs have happened, and they need to be tweaked for you.  No need to re-create the wheel if there is already an existing 5K or 5-mile route that you can use.

Bottom line…I always like to create a 5-mile route from the start that will survive growth, and have a shorter option within that route to accommodate walkers who want to participate but cannot make 5 miles.   Everyone wins!

Check out my previous post about how to make sure your route is safe, no matter the length.

Here in the Boston area, we have more than 30 walkathons happening during September and October.

Some popular locations have back-to-back Saturday/Sunday events.

A good walkathon route and site is like an event space or scenic church that serves as a wedding factory.

We have all been there at one time or another.

The balloons are just a different color.

What if you want to change things up and bring walkers to a new, and exciting location?

Will that make them want to attend?

Maybe, but you still need to personally ask and invite them first.

Having an event at the same location for 5, 10 or 20 years may be turn-key or sentimental.

However, keeping the event and walk route fresh and exciting may invigorate your long-time participants.

Here are three things (of many!) you should consider for your new-and-improved walkathon route:

1. Route should be all right-turns.

This will help cut-down on the police if you need to close roads.

2. Route should be scenic.

Please walk it before you publish it and don’t rely on a running website that maps your 5K or 5 miles.

A client once drove me around their route that included lovely things like obscene graffiti, cars on blocks, and bloodied sidewalks.

Needless to say, it was a virgin excursion for both of us.

3. Route should be safe.

Walk it, bike it, run it.  Look for uneven sidewalks, hostile wildlife, broken bricks or cement.

Here are three things (of many!) you should consider for your new-and-improved walkathon site (for the stage and registration, etc..)

1. Event site should have plenty of P’s:   Parking or Public transportation or both.

If your guests have parking anxiety like me, then they will need to be assured that their vehicle will be close-by.

2. Event site should have a natural stage.

You don’t want to add to your expenses by hiring a staging company that may not show up in the rain.

3. Event site should have accessible power.

You don’t want to add to your expenses by renting noisy generators that some companies will not allow to be exposed to nasty weather.

What if you are stuck at your site because there are not any other locations in your area to have a walk? Talk to the event that has the site before or after you and work-out a tent-share to save on rental costs! Agree on placement so the rent-a-tent folks do not have to move anything.  Same thing with toilets, tables and chairs!

Just make sure you get fresh balloons!

Mmmmmm. Who loves the smell of hot coffee and donuts on a chilly morning?

Nothing concerns me more upon entering a walkathon than the lovely aroma of coffee and fresh, steaming baked goods.

Mmmmmmm.  Yes, I said concerning. Why?

Because the big, ugly precedent door has been opened it will be hard to close. Why?

Because you have offered your volunteers, walkers, or both these delicious culinary delights and they will expect it year to year.   If you are hoping your event will grow in walkers and dollars every year, then the number of people expecting these warm treats will also increase every year.

Oh, these are just for volunteers?  How will you determine who is and isn’t a volunteer? Are you really going to turn away a walker (with donations yet to turn in!) if they come over looking for some coffee in the morning?

When is enough enough?  Will you always be able to afford the coffee and pastries?  What if your coffee and treat donor decides the numbers are too big and they can no longer afford to provide?  These are the questions I ask my clients when they start to tell me about the volunteer check-in.    Somehow, coffee and donuts are always mentioned.

These nice-to-haves are great at the beginning but can wreak havoc on you logistically (and financially!) when your event grows.

The answer?  Keep the precedent door shut. Before opening it, think about if you can afford to do this when your event grows to 1,000 or 10,000 walkers.   (I worked at an event with almost 1,000 volunteers!  Who can afford coffee for that many people?)  Dunkin’ Donuts is always happy to appear with their pimped-out 36-ft rolling coffee-sampling-Winnebago with beverages for thousands, but then you will have a 36-ft billboard competing with the astronomically-smaller signage you have promised your sponsors that have paid dearly for the visibility.

Same thing goes for the treats you provide for the walkers at the end of your route. Lunch for 100 gets scary, and expensive, when it becomes lunch for 1,000.   Keep the food simple.  No walker has ever died of starvation during the 1-3 hours they spend with you on the 5-mile route.

Keeping the big, ugly precedent door shut will allow you to never have to hear the disappointed and snarky phrase “Hmph. Last year you had….”

Hey! Let’s do a walkathon and we can raise money for (your deserving cause here)!

Most of the large, national walk events started as a small, grass-roots effort with a bunch of families and their friends trying to raise awareness and money for their cause.

One of those large-scale special events is celebrating their 40-year anniversary.  Other walks are celebrating 20 years!

So let’s do it!   Let’s do a walkathon!  Wahooooooooweeeee!

Easy – right?

MmmmmmmmNo. But, I can help.

First things first. Get your docs in a row.  Paperwork!

Before you start on the journey of creating a walk and hopefully receiving tax-deductible donations,  you need to register as a non-profit and file some paperwork with your state and the IRS.  Filing and document fees have gone up so be prepared to spend some money to make this happen.

Choose a name.  Do your research and make sure no other organization owns it.  This is a good place to check.  While you’re at it, you should probably acquire your web domain and twitter handles, etc…

When the docs are done and you are official – you should open a bank account so you can write checks for expenses and distributions to your cause.  A few housekeeping questions include: Who will have access to this money?  How many signatures do you want on each written check?  What, exactly, are you going to spend the money on?

So much to think about before planning the actual event.  Good luck!

Forms, filings and fees:

I live in Massachusetts and here is a link to our Attorney General’s Office:   Check with the AGO in your state for the proper forms.

Federal guidelines on how to apply to be tax exempt:

Info on becoming a 501(c)(3)

tchatchke (chäch-kə) or tchotchke

Definition from Merriam-Webster:

A Knick-knack or trinket

(Origin) Yiddish tshatshke trinket, from obsolete Polish czaczko

Definition from the Urban Dictionary:

A small piece of worthless crap, a decorative knick knack with little or no purpose.

Why do humans lose all sense of dignity and manners when there is a table full of samples or gratis merchandise?

What is it about a 2-inch magnet, a comb, a sticker, a lip moisturizer or any other mindless tchotchkes that make people lose their shit?

Watching the latest Shark Week extravaganza with my kids made me think about how giveaways at events are like a shark feed.

That is why I am not a fan of allowing my sponsors, or my event, to give unrelated event stuff away. 

Why?  Because you will NEVER, EVER have enough.   If you have a walk with 500 people, and have 5,000 shameless-self-promoting pieces of whatever (tchotchkes) – you will never have enough.  Imagine a walkathon with 40,000 people…

It must be part of human nature to grab, handfuls at a time, for anything considered free.   Oh – you want to distribute it? One per customer?  Good luck with that.  Make sure it is an intern and that they have health insurance.

Here are three (of many!) reasons that free stuff is a logistical nightmare at walkathon events:

1.   If it is wrapped, then the wrapping becomes a trash issue for you.

2.  How do you handle the crowd when you run out?

3.  How do you determine who gets one?

If it is a free-for-all, then back that thang up.  Here they come!

Stop the madness before it begins!   Once you open the big, ugly precedent door it will be hard to close it.

Once upon a time, when I was an event manager – there were always a few things that appeared, uninvited, to my walk:

1.   The guerilla-marketing ad-wrapped vehicle that pulls up onto the property to distribute free samples.

2.   The man wearing a (choose your color) spandex unitard making sure everyone could see his moose knuckle while ‘stretching’.

3.   Pets wearing decorative shrapnel.

A popular question always comes up during my logistics trainings:

“How can I tell my walkers NOT to bring their dogs to the event?”

So many fantastic event photos are photo-bombed by an adorable two-or-four-legged friend wearing the most outrageous sweaters, hats, antlers, etc…   If you want to discourage this, then ask your photographer NOT to pose the people and their pets so as to not encourage this behavior for future events.

BTW, an event I managed was sued by a walker that broke her hip after tripping over a dog leash.   And THAT is why you need insurance!

I tell my clients to use the following phrase in the event collateral, so the walkers know what to expect before the event:

“For the safety of our walkers, please leave your pets, bicycles and roller blades at home.”

I’m no pet-hater (although one of my Humane clients remind me that they are not pets, but animals we share our home with) and I love seeing the creative get-ups that these pets wear.  I just don’t want the photos to appear on the web site, posters, walk papers etc..  If the walkers see these cute photos on the collateral, then they will think it is OK to bring their pets.

Remember, it is YOUR event. If you will be welcoming to pets, then please make sure your have services for them.

I’ll post again about this once I find the llama photo.

A few weeks ago, my family volunteered at an outdoor fundraising event to benefit the nephew of a close friend.  My friend joked that I would find a few gems to write about for my blog, and she was right!

Luckily, I had my camera and was wearing my ‘volunteer hat’ instead of my “wench-on-wheels-event-manager-hat.”.   The latter is quite a sight, and it smells bad too.

Here are three ‘gems’ that are common mistakes of new events – and are easy to fix for next year:

1.   All signs should be at least 5 feet off the ground.   If there is a line, or crowd of people in front of a table with signage,  then the messaging is lost.   I see this alot at events where there is a registration table.

Hanging signs off the end of a table seems sensible, but use an easel or a tent pole when you can so people can see it.

2.   Items for sale should be in dollars only, not cents.    You have a captive audience, so keep the money simple.  I always tell my clients that are selling shirts to make sure the price ends in a zero (0) or a five (5).  It saves alot of monetary headaches.

It is enevitable that your customers will pay with a $20.  Make sure you start with enough money to provide change.

3.   Be prepared for the food donations you receive.  This event was fortunate to receive lots of food and beverage donations.   A volunteer thought ahead to bring a toaster, but no knives to cut the bagels and spread the cream cheese.  BTW, there was no power to available to use the toaster.  

I am a big fan of using the website signupgenius.com to organize tasks and donations for schools or small events.  You can plug-in all the things you need for your event and your volunteers can respond to the invitation by choosing a time shift, or items to bring.

Overall, the event was a financial success and raised awareness about a disease that needs more research dollars!

If you are married, or have ever booked entertainment for a special event, then you have probably gone to spy on the potential entertainers at someone else’s wedding, or event.

You want to make sure they sound good – right?

You want to make sure the lead singer has all their teeth – yes?

You want to make sure they will work well for your big day.

Same idea goes for your outdoor event site where you will have a stage, or tents and tables for things like Registration, Merchandise Sales, etc…

You need to go for a site visit well in advance of your event to make sure it will work for you.

Please, visit your outdoor event site in the rain.

Visit your outdoor event site in the pouring, torrential rain.

It is important to see where the rain moves, flows and creates lakes or streams.

You want to make sure that your walkers are not standing in a body of water while they are waiting in line at your registration tent or table.

Please do not make your walkers wait in ankle-deep water to turn-in their information and hard-earned donations!

Depending on Mutha Nature’s mood, you may have a beautiful sunny day or a cloudy day or a full-out rained-soaked nightmare.

(I prefer a mostly cloudy day in the high 60s)

Being prepared for her potential wrath will allow your guests (walkers) to enjoy the day without much discomfort.

My tip for you event managers….  Bring extra dry socks!

I am always a new woman when I replace my dew-soaked-wet-socks with nice and dry socks!