Go green: Another advantage of adding software to your walkathon or pledge event

This post may seem obvious but I think it's worth it.

I spoke to an Executive Director of an org that runs a walkathon with over 1500 participants.  Everyone registers on paper and receives a pledge sheet and instructions via snail mail.  When it's all said an done, we're talking about at least 5000 sheets of paper, 2000 envelopes and stamps, and thousands of checks. 

This is not good considering there are much better and accessible ways to do this.  And I'm not even taking into account the inefficiencies of running an event manually.  Yet, the majority of walkathons and pledge events in th US are manually run affairs. 

Part of the reason might be the fear of losing money to expensive software vendors.  One way to hedge your risk is by choosing a vendor who won't charge transaction fees and won't stick you with surcharges if you exceed a certain number of registrants.  This way, as your event grows, your costs won't grow with it.

Regardless of who you choose, moving your event to a software platform is the responsible thing to do for many reasons.  And in a market that's driven by social responsibility, adding the right software to your walkathon or pledge event is the right thing to do.

Comments

[Keith Johnston]

There are a few other thoughts to go with the excellent points that you made.

The first is how many potential participants are they losing by being paper only. I can tell you that unless there is an online way to register for anything, I don't.

The second is the potential to increase the number of participants by being electronic. Things like URL's or email blasts are easy to forward to friends who may also like to participate. I can't tell you how many times I have gotten an email (The Chicago Late Ride is a great example) where I have said "John might like this too".....click, off it goes.

The last thing is a money thing. In the long run, moving from paper to electronic will probably save thousands of dollars in printing, design and mailing costs allowing for the money to go back into marketing or into the coffers of the charity that the walk supports.

Just a thought.

Keith

[Syam Buradagunta]

Precisely Keith. Lower costs, higher revenue, better for the world. There's really no excuse to be running an a-thon event without software. But unfortunately it still happens. But the light bulb will go off sooner or later. Like the fellow in this IBM ad.

[Syam Buradagunta]

this ad...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UITH_PnWtlQ