If you review a community event calendar you may see organizations offering a one-mile fun run with their events.  This short distance run can improve your audience reach within the community and compliment a 5K or 10K nicely.  They can also be great add-ons to weekend festivals or health fairs. Including more people in your event is, of course, a winning situation when it comes to generating more funds for your charity.

There are a lot of different ways you can add a one-mile fun run to your event and several different audiences for which you can tailor it. These events appeal to different age groups and exercisers in a way that longer races may not. It is ideal to use this event to reach the audiences you may be missing with your longer events.

Here are a few of the ways you can appeal to different audiences by adding a one-mile fun run to your plan.

Involve children. This length of event is an ideal way to include youth in your event. While a 5K can be too lengthy, a mile is an achievable and safer distance for children of grade school age. These events serve as an excellent way to get children started with participating in charity fitness events.

Promote family participation. You can hold the event solely for children, but it can be even more beneficial to make it a family focused event. Allow parents to run with their kids in the one-mile event to encourage families to get involved in fundraising for your charity.

Invite a more diverse group of exercisers. Depending on fitness level, successfully completing a 5K can take a significant amount of training and focus on running. Sometimes even walking a 5K can be a lot if someone new to exercise. A one-miler can make your event more approachable for participants who fall in this category. Some exercisers may never consider a 5K, but a one-mile event may spark their interest.

Draw in the non-competitive types. Long distance events can bring out the competitiveness in people. This isn’t a bad thing unless you are the non-competitive type. The nature of the event alone can turn off those individuals who like to exercise and raise funds, but dislike the feel of competition. One-mile fun runs are just that – fun! If you are already hosting a longer, timed event consider focusing your one-miler on completion. If you want to give out prizes for this event, consider doing it based on a raffle as opposed to finishing places.

Maintaining a sufficient amount of donors is vital for a charity organization. Whether it is those who donate separate of an event or those who return year after year to your race, keeping them is a priority.

We want to gain new supporters and initiate more funds, but if we let our veteran supporters slip out of our grasp we’ll never reach our monetary goals.

So how do we keep people loyal to our specific cause and organization?

The 2008 Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA) survey and research conducted by Indiana University professor, Adrian Sargeant found evidence of a few key practices that may lead to maintaining donor loyalty.

At least one part of your efforts to communicate with donors should be customized whether this is a phone call, email or similar method. Organizations that made this a priority saw lower attrition rates than those who didn’t customize.

According to Sargeant, customizing is really the key for retention. Survey respondents reported using calls, texts, emails, newsletters and incorporating more face-to-face interaction such as planning activities and asking for volunteer help as a way to customize their efforts.

Contacting donors three to eight times per year appears to be the magic number range. Charities who maintained this level of contact were able to retain more of their donors as opposed to those who made contact fewer times per year. The information I reviewed didn’t mention anything about the effects of contacting them more.

I gave this some thought considering the organizations to which I most often donate. I like to know what is going on, how funds are used and information about goals reached, but if I don’t get a letter or email that specifically has my name at the top of it I can’t say I’m swayed to stop supporting them.

I support the organizations I believe in because the cause is close to my heart and I know they are a trustworthy entity with standards in line with my own. Then again, compared to some I am certainly not considered a major donor. Everyone likes to be appreciated so perhaps those who give large sums prefer this kind of communication.

What do you think? What have your experiences been either as the charity organization or the donor? Is personalized communication and the number of times per year you give/receive it making a difference?

Here are two articles that have additional reading about the research:

Regular customised communications reduce face-to-face donor attrition at UKFundraising

Personalised communication ‘means lower drop-out rates’ at ThirdSector