Running Down Dementia – Developing a Virtual Event

Kenneth Foreman

Senior Sporting Events & Partnerships Manager

/kennethforeman@kenf81

Leading funder of dementia research in Europe

Amongst the fastest growing medical research charities in the UK

Medium sized charity with 100+ staff raising £24M per annum

It’s called Digital Disruption

Everything is becoming virtual

Everything is becoming virtual

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most

popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest

accommodation provider, owns no real estate.”

Tom Goodwin, TechTargets , March 3rd 2015

Quantification

is becoming

part of daily life

Statics on Wearable Technology

sourced from Forbes (forbes.com)

Adoption of Wearable Technology

<50M units

shipped in 2015

Market worth >£5B

>125M units expected to

be shipped in 2019

1 in 6consumers

50 billion internet-

connected devices

48% between 18 and 34

Expected growth

increase 35% by 2019

…these changes are influencing our supporters’ expectations

…and they are looking for fun & exciting ways to support the causes that matter to them.

Their time is precious and they want to

provide value more than just money

They want to talk about their passion with their networks

They want to feel connected to a

community

What is a Virtual Event?

Community Fitness

Fundraising

Why are events going virtual?

Traditional run/walk/swim market is slowing

Time/resource needed to organise physical events

Reduces time to market

Reduces barriers of time and geography

Eliminates external factors e.g. weather

Higher margin on your fundraising returns

Reduces cost to entry

Reduces administration for fundraiser

Desire to create & leverage digital communities

How it Works

Ask participants to sign up

Participants connect to their preferred fitness app

Start tracking their effort

01

02

03

What was the challenge we faced?

• In 2015 we started a new partnership with parkrun UK

• Engage this community with our brand and cause

• How to best leverage the opportunity (over 1M+ runners)

• Wide spread following across the UK

Darkrun

BarkrunSelf donation vs

sponsorship

Digital Vs physical

Donate Your Time Ditch the drive

Mass appealMobile-first approach

Accessible to allRaise awareness & fundsBuild on the community

Why a virtual event?

• Virtual Events trend in 2015 and EDH platform capabilities

• Access to a large running audience with a limited budget

• Learnings from Donate Your Time – mobile first

• Commenced discussions in Dec 2015 and launched in May 2016

Product development

• Simple ask ‘Run 100km raise £100 over the summer’

• Scoping sessions with target audience

• Skills and experience of EDH as a partner

• MVP for launch with improvements along the way

• Limited budget & resource

• Branding and design work internal

• Development outsourced to EDH

• Digital marketing - combination

External Vs Internal

RDD 1.0 Launch – May 2016

Acquisition marketing – digital

Organic• parkrun channels (email, event attendance, social)• Existing ARUK warm supporters (email, social)• Encouraging social sharing & recruitment

Paid for:• Online community – Running bug • Paid social (Fb & IG) – Average CPA £22• Google search & display

Stewardship

• Milestone emails, SMS and personal contact for key achievements

• Facebook group with regular updates inc Facebook Live

• Staff team who were walking the walk

• parkrun event attendance for leading events

Building a community

• Using our audience to drive recruitment

• Regular content strategy

• Giving the charity an identity

• Using community champions to drive the campaign

Results - Income

Active32%

Inactive68%

Beat15%

Below17%Inactive

68%

Beat Page Target: Raised £157,974

Below Page Target: Raised £48,658

Results – Amount raised

Range # of pages

£ raised

Avg page value

%

£401+ 91 £72,606.75 £797.8717% of the overall sign

ups

(53.5% of active

fundraisers)

£301-£400: 76 £26,313.34 £346.22

£201-£300: 140 £33,483.92 £239.17

£101-£200: 365 £49,767.52 £136.35

£76-£100: 102 £9,331.37 £91.48 15% of the overall sign

ups

(46% of active

fundraisers)

£51-£75: 107 £6,738.11 £62.97

£1 - £50: 373 £8,389.64 £22.49

£0-5030%

£101-20029%

£201-30011%

£301-4006%

£401+7%

£51-759%

£76-1008%

£0-50

£101-200£201-300£301-400

Results - Acquisition ARUK website, 1%

Email from ARUK 4%

Friend/Relative 4%

parkrun 55%

Social media, 36%

RDD 2.0

• New look and feel – agency engagement

• Development outsourcing

• Increased marketing spend

• Feature enhancements for corporate

What did we learn?

• Pro’s and con’s of outsourcing to one partner

• Building a sense of community was key

• The importance of exploring all partnerships/corporates

• Segmented stewardship

• Cant fully rely on digital only

Recognition & feedback

• Best Use of Digital – National Fundraising Awards 2017

• Best New Event – Bronze Award – The Running Awards 2016

‘Fab experience and really nice to have a phone call at the end to say thank you - lovely touch! Great to have a FB group to see others' progress & updates.’

‘Thank you supporters/organisers of this event which helped to make 2016 an extremely special one, introducing me to a form of physical exercise which gave me so much strength physically and

emotionally to help me with the RDD challenge and beyond.’

What did ARUK achieve?

A dedicated community that continues to raise awareness & support

£441k raised over the last two years (4:1 ROI)

An accessible product that was available to all supporters

A new events area that we are continuing to develop and grow

3 Take Aways

01

02

03

There is still a chance to get into Virtual Events whilst the concept is still relatively new!

You don’t need to be technical in order to create a great digital event and you don’t need a massive budgets

Virtual Events provide the opportunity to weave your causeinto the fabric of your supporters daily lives.

Thank you

Any questions?