Elevating endurance and fundraising communities with the art of technology.
The weather is cooling off and the days are getting shorter. For the running community, that can only mean one thing…Turkey Trot season is coming. Thanksgiving Day has evolved as the largest single running day in the United States, with well over a million participants in Turkey Trots across the country. In 2019, RunSignup alone […]
We often get asked about the reasons for our success achieving 25-30% market share in the endurance market. And as we enter the Nonprofit market with GiveSignup, people are wondering where we fit and whether we will have success there as well. This will be a long blog about the blueprint we have followed for […]
This fall, join the GiveSignup sales team for one or more of our biweekly educational webinars on GiveSignup donations and ticket events. Jake, Chris, and Amanda will go over GiveSignup’s purpose-built features that will help your nonprofit raise money in this unprecedented fall. We plan to roll out new features throughout the fall, and these […]
After 10+ years of development, the RunSignup platform has a lot of features that we are proud of. Of course, not everyone uses all the features, but each feature needs a place to live, so that our users can navigate to it, and use it if they choose to. The sheer amount of features we […]
This guest post includes a press release from our Marketplace Partner, Strategic Risk Transfers. For additional information, see below the release.Worcester, MA – Strategic Risk Transfers (SRT) today announced the debut of their virtual race liability insurance program. “As COVID physical distancing restrictions began to force races to convert to virtual format, race directors were […]
We usually do a Race Registration Market Analysis twice a year – March and September. This is an unusual year, but we did a special one in April, 2020 to try to capture what was happening in the endurance market. We usually include a bunch of stats from different sources to compare the various registration platforms and […]
We began monthly updates in July after doing weekly updates that ended in Week 18, and are shifting to monthly updates. The monthly update is meant to give stats that are useful to the endurance and nonprofit communities we serve, but also to bridge the gap between our Quarterly Business Updates, and our Monthly Newsletter. We also published […]
Preparing for the Fall Race Season 2020 may not look like an average year, but preparation for fall race season is creeping up nonetheless. Race organizers, timers, and nonprofits across the country are reviewing their options and learning more about virtual options, modifying in-person events, and creating hybrid versions that incorporate both in-person and virtual […]
GiveSignup Fall Cram Sessions The GiveSignup team hosted three sessions during RunSignup | GiveSignup’s fall cram session on August 25th. The sessions focused on ways nonprofits can raise money and engage supporters this fall: Peer to Peer Fundraising Options on RunSignup | GiveSignup; Giving Tuesday Campaigns; and Nonprofit Virtual Case Studies. All session recordings, slides, […]
More than 600 race directors, timers, and nonprofits registered to join us for a one-day prep for the unprecedented Fall Race Season. As the name suggested, it was a true cram – 11 sessions over 6.5 hours covering a wide breadth of information on virtual races, virtual challenges, fundraising, and modifying in-person events. Whether you’re […]
Several months into the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent shutdown of almost all in-person fundraising, nonprofits are forced to continually find new ways to engage their supporters from a distance. The good news is that there are plenty of ways that you can do this virtually, and RunSignup | GiveSignup offers a set of tools that […]
We are pleased to announce RaceJoy’s dynamic audio race experience is now available real-time for virtual and on-site race events. Previously, custom recorded audio files were required to be loaded at least 10 days in advance of the race date. Now, custom recordings can be added at any time – even as the event is taking […]
As we head into the Fall Race Season, race organizers are starting to re-think their events – and with that, we’ve seen a wave of race directors and nonprofits who are new to RunSignup | GiveSignup. Along with that, many long-term customers are pivoting their businesses to virtual – meaning they, too, are starting from […]
Guest blog from Paul McMullen – Creator of the COVID Self Report Pass The Iowa State Triathlon Championship on July 26, 2020 used a new software solution to screen volunteers and athletes for symptoms of COVID-19. It took an Olympic athlete, the owner of True Timing Systems and RunSignUp to execute an effective and efficient COVID-19 Action […]
Timers: if you missed this week’s Timer Tip Tuesday, you can watch the recording here. Crisp McDonald covers how to use RunSignup’s Bib management tool, including manual, automatic, and dynamic bib assignments – a key part of providing a virtual race experience and virtual results. Recorded Webinar Timer Tip Tuesday Slide Show RunSignup Webinars […]
GiveSignup Donation Forms provide nonprofits a great upgrade path from old PayPal donate buttons. There are a number of advantages to upgrading: Feature your Nonprofit’s branding, not PayPal’s branding Encourage donation levels Give donors flexible choices of one-time or recurring gifts Enable tribute information collection Use your URL / Domain (for free!) Donation use designation […]
There is more gamification to engage and celebrate your fundraisers when they hit fundraising milestones with the release of Fundraiser Milestone Confetti. You must have fundraiser milestones set up for the fundraiser confetti to show. Navigate to Fundraising >> Individual Fundraisers >> Fundraiser Rewards. Add one or multiple milestones for your fundraisers to achieve. You […]
We have always eagerly studied Eventbrite since they are a company with a business model very similar to ours – earning money based solely on processing fees for events (and for us nonprofit donations). During their Q1 report, we learned how COVID-19 was impacting their business. And we have been awaiting these numbers as we […]
With the impact of COVID-19 continuing to reverberate through the country and the endurance community, race directors, timers, and nonprofits are looking for ways to engage new communities online. One way to do that is through our Challenge Platform – with limitless options, challenges can appeal to broad audiences beyond the typical endurance participant. But […]
We had been doing weekly updates on the numbers we are seeing since the pandemic began. We ended that in Week 18, and are shifting to monthly updates. The monthly update is meant to give stats that are useful to the endurance and nonprofit communities we serve, but also to bridge the gap between our […]
Starting in August, Strava and RunSignUp will be sunsetting the current affiliate partnership where races could earn sponsor revenue from Strava on their race websites. We will focus on rebuilding the partnership in a way that brings more value to race directors and our athletes. For races opted-in the partnership, you will no longer see co-branding […]
Fun with Challenges Virtual Challenges got another round of updates this month, with more digital rewards in the form of milestones, badges, and milestone notifications. With all the rapid releases to Challenges over the previous months, we decided it was a good time take stock of some of the creative and innovative ways that customers […]
You can now add a dynamic donation goal to all event, ticket, and donation websites on GiveSignup | RunSignup! This lets you feature your donation goal progress prominently on your website with a clear Donate call to action. To add a Donation Goal to your website, navigate to the Cover Page set up on your […]
Challenges are long and, well, challenging. Milestones and badges offer intermediate goals for your participants, rewarding them and keeping them engaged throughout the Challenge. We now have new options to complement your Virtual Challenge Milestones & Badges with custom messages and email notifications via Additional Display Settings. Once you have saved a milestone you will […]
Join us for a one-day prep for the unprecedented Fall Race Season The RunSignup | GiveSignup Fall Cram Session is a one-day, online educational session for race directors, timers, and nonprofits. The goal is simple: reviewing as much information as possible to help you plan for a successful fall season amidst unconventional circumstances. Sessions will […]
GiveSignup | RunSignup is proud to debut a new corporate matching gifts integration with 360MatchPro by Double the Donation, the leading provider of matching gift and volunteer grant solutions to nonprofits and educational institutions. Nonprofits that use Double the Donation as their corporate matching gift platform can now enable the integration on any GiveSignup | […]
Wanda Sports Group announced the sale of Ironman to Advance, a New York based investment company known for owning media and entertainment companies like Condé Nast and Stage Entertainment. One of the interesting things about the sale was occurring during the middle of the pandemic. The original sale price of $730 Million was announced in […]
With the impact of COVID-19 continuing to reverberate through the country and the endurance community, race directors, timers, and nonprofits are looking for ways to engage new communities online. One way to do that is through our Challenge Platform – with limitless options, challenges can appeal to broad audiences beyond the typical endurance participant. But […]
With the increasing need for corral management to increase safety during COVID restrictions and limit the number of people in a given time, corral management has become very important. We have updated our Corral Management System to make the existing functions easier to understand and use since more and more races are using them. Now […]
Here are a number of videos that RunScore has produced to help guide RunScore timers in how to integrate with RunSignup:
We are excited to welcome Amanda, Chris, and Jake to the GiveSignup | RunSignup team! They are joining us as GiveSignup’s sales team, and will help existing and new nonprofit customers use GiveSignup | RunSignup’s technology to raise money, save money, and engage supporters. Amanda Sweet Amanda graduated from Shippensburg University with a Marketing degree […]
With the impact of COVID-19 continuing to reverberate through the country and the endurance community, race directors, timers, and nonprofits are looking for ways to engage new communities online. One way to do that is through our Challenge Platform – with limitless options, challenges can appeal to broad audiences beyond the typical endurance participant. But […]
Milestones and badges are the latest way to keep your participants engaged in your challenge, offering them intermediate rewards on the journey to their goal. RaceDay Product Manager Matt Avery detailed types of milestones you can set, adding custom badges, and using milestones to keep your participants motivated. Milestones can be set for teams or […]
RunScore continues a series of nice videos on how to integrate between their scoring software and RunSignup:
Last week we released Milestones, intermediate Goals along your Challenge journey, and their accompanying badges. There are a few default badges built into the system, but you can also upload custom badges to match your event. Two tools we recommend for badges: Open Badge Designer: This tool has built in backgrounds that look like badges, […]
Want to know how to set up user submitted scored results for your virtual results? Watch this recorded webinar that offers step-by-step guidance on basic to advanced scenarios. Users can then submit their results through a variety of methods. Races should get with their timers to help them set up more complicated scenarios and for […]
We kept getting the same question of whether RunSignup and GiveSignup can work together – so we decided to make it very visual with our new combo logo you may have noticed on both websites. Just like those old ven diagrams you learned in school, RunSignup and GiveSignup share the same foundation with a single […]
Like many this past holiday weekend we watched Hamilton (yes, it is worth much more than a month’s cost of Disney+). The third song is Hamilton singing “My Shot”, and the lyrics had a bit of a familiar ring for little RunSignup and what we are embarking on with GiveSignup. “I’m young, scrappy and hungry.” […]
Races offering a virtual race experience can deliver an interactive, socially safe race experience with RaceJoy. Below is a new RaceJoy quick overview video that covers the key features of RaceJoy for participants, spectators, and race organizers. From live participant track, cheer sending, automated user results, and so much more – Keep your race experience […]
We now support another fun way to engage your participants throughout the length of your Virtual Challenge – Milestones and Badges! This is just the start of a large project around Milestones which will eventually include things like automatically sending notifications to participants if they complete a Milestone, having a unique link for each Milestone […]
Guest blog from Scott Sutter of Strategic Risk Transfers. He is a race director and is in the insurance business. He has been working on getting this product together for the past couple of months and is excited to share the news about Virtual Race insurance and how they have leveraged the RaceJoy technology as […]
We got a number of questions about our Q2 report regarding our estimate that 2021 was going to be much like this year. Our expectation is that normal running of races will not happen again until 2022. There will be some real races this year and in 2021. And the number and size will probably […]
This is our first full quarterly report during COVID-19. As we have discussed over the past several months, this has impacted our entire community, and certainly RunSignup/GiveSignup negatively. You can review past results here: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, Q1-19, Q2-19, Q3-19, 2019, and Q1-20. Summary Numbers As expected, the numbers are all down […]
To make Challenges and Virtual Events successful, you need to create interactions with participants. With our All in One system, we make this easy with our free email marketing and replacement tags. We have created a number fo replacement tags that will automatically fill in each participant’s unique link for: Digital Bib Finisher Certificate Individual […]
The RunSignup/GiveSignup Facebook Pixel integration has been expanded to trigger when a standalone donation is made. This update helps nonprofits better track the effectiveness of ads in terms of registration vs. donation transactions. You do not need to do anything to update your current Facebook Pixel set up. You will now have reporting in your […]
We have added an option in user profiles (https://RunSignup.com/Profile) to select Non-binary in addition to Male and Female: This will show as a “null” from a database perspective, and be left as blank when looking at your profile: Making a change to each race’s registration is done at the option of each race director. This […]
RunScore has created a nice video that explains how to upload results from RunScore to RunSignup.
The photo above is a white board drawing of the new Photo 2.0 architecture and flow of information. It is OK if you don’t understand it – the important thing to know is it allows us to add a bunch of cool photo features and continue to expand. We released the beginnings of the Photos […]
As those that attended our Symposium last week found out, we released Photos 2.0. The really exciting part about this is it enables participants to upload their own photos. Perfect for Virtual Races and Challenges. Participants get their own photo album and page where they can see their photos and upload more photos: There is […]
We held our first Virtual Symposium last week! Over 4 days, 500 race directors, timers, and nonprofit leaders attended 23 educational sessions, 2 sets of round-table discussions, Certifications in RaceDay Scoring and RaceJoy, and a Happy Hour. Collectively, the group attended 3,940 hours of education. While our “normal” Symposiums focus on a broad range of […]
