In most charity virtual races, two competitions – miles and money – happen in separate silos. Racers log activities to advance on the virtual route and move up on the miles leaderboard… or racers solicit donations to advance on the donation leaderboard.
Now, to energize donors and reward fundraisers, Racery’s newest feature rewards fundraising success with bonus miles. The feature is called Fundraising Bonus Miles.
How the money-to-miles mechanic works
The feature bridges the gap between the two gamification metrics: racers get bonus miles as they pass a series of pre-determined fundraising thresholds.
To keep things interesting, the bonus thresholds ratchet up on a curve, not a steady line. Raising $10 earns a racer one bonus mile. Passing the $25 threshold earns an extra five miles. Hitting $50, earns twelve miles. Accumulate $200 in total donations and the racer vaults thirty-four miles up the leaderboard! On top of this, racers who surpass their own fundraising goal get even more bonus miles.
Each bonus triggers once per racer, the moment a donation tips the racer’s cumulative total over the next threshold . A thank-you lands in the virtual race’s activity feed with a link back to the gift that triggered the bump. Donors get to see the impact of their generosity. Racers feel the miles AND money leaderboards shift, creating an escalator effect that pushes other racers to raise money too.
Racery’s feature flips the common “sponsor a mile” model on its head. Which has two big advantages.
First, in a pledge-per-mile race, donors promise a set amount for every mile a runner covers — so if that runner gets injured or loses steam or gets demoralized, the dollars dry up with the miles. A donor gives, the gift is locked in, miles arrive as a reward.
Second, the Racery mechanic means that people who are less athletic can keep pace with elite athletes.
You can see how the feature works in the activity feed of this virtual race, the sixth annual charity virtual race hosted by property management company Associa using Racery’s platform.
A race sponsor can set their own custom money-to-miles award tiers. The defaults (above) ship with each race, but a charity wanting gentler steps, or bigger bumps, can adjust the numbers in Racery’s conversion dashboard.
Donation Bonus Miles are unique
Other virtual race platforms — RunSignup, Charity Footprints, CauseVox, the rest of the pack — don’t include this feature.
Why we built the new feature
We built this feature for Development Directors, Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Managers, and Charity Special Events Managers who want to bring new energy that engages long-time supporters or tap into a new demographic cohort.
For a charity or company doing fundraising for a charity, the Donation Bonus Miles feature rewires the emotional logic of a race, giving donors a stake in advancing a friend, family member or colleague in the challenge’s leaderboard.
Frequently asked questions
Can donations count as miles in a virtual race? On Racery, yes. Thanks to the new Fundraising Bonus Miles , a racer earns bonus miles each time their cumulative fundraising total crosses a configured donation threshold, plus an extra bonus for reaching a personal fundraising goal. The bonus miles advance the racer on the route and in the standings.
What virtual race platforms reward fundraising with race progress? Racery is the only virtual race platform to convert fundraising into route progress directly. Most platforms — RunSignup, Charity Footprints, CauseVox among them — track donations and miles on separate leaderboards, with no link between giving and movement on the map.
How do Racery’s Fundraising Challenges work? A sponsor sets dollar tiers (for example $10, $25, $50, $100, $200), each worth a defined number of bonus miles. When a donor backs a racer and the racer’s total crosses a tier, the bonus miles post automatically to the leaderboard and a thank-you appears in the activity feed. A separate bonus fires when a racer hits a personal fundraising goal.
Can people who don’t exercise still climb the leaderboard? Yes. Because donations earn bonus miles, supporters who cannot or prefer not to log physical activity can still advance on the route and contribute to a team’s standing through fundraising alone.
Is the feature hard to set up? No. Fundraising Challenges are built into Racery’s activity-conversion dashboard. Setup takes a few minutes, and a built-in offline-donation test confirms the tiers fire correctly before a race goes live.
Do donors owe more money as racers go further? No, the opposite. Racers go further on the route the more money they raise.
Does Racery take a cut of donations? No. One hundred percent of donations, less standard credit card fees, go directly to the charity. Racery keeps no commission on funds raised.
Ready to rev up your donors with a virtual race? Start a free test virtual race or talk with our experts about building your virtual challenge for fundraising and fitness.