Charity Virtual Races — $0 Setup, Keep Every Donation

Each virtual race includes free tools for fundraising, email campaigns, education, and branding

Charity development directors, P2P fundraising managers, and event coordinators love virtual races, which connect stakeholders living thousands of miles apart as a community in a single event.

Racery has powered a variety of virtual race formats since 2014. Our fundraising races, virtual 5Ks for runners and walkers, memorial walks, and team challenges for multiple abilities provide a framework that supports any charity’s mission and donor footprint.

Each virtual race creates a big calendar window for messaging and momentum-building. Races happen in stages – 1 to 2 months for registration and fundraising, 1 to 4 weeks for the actual virtual race, and a multi-day post-race period for messaging about general results and awards, and fundraising heroes. 

We urge potential race partners to try a free trial virtual race to log miles and test our fundraising tools. We offer two tiers of packages that accommodate your organization’s needs and budget. Larger organizations can pay a fee so that extra features are unlocked and Racery to help manage their races. Smaller organizations that manage their own races pay no set-up fee — $0 setup + with a per-racer fee on entry. You can be very successful without our help. See this case study of a DIY virtual race that raised $180 per participant.

More below on both virtual race tiers.

Why Racery?

While most virtual race companies started during the pandemic in 2020, Racery started hosting virtual races in 2014, long before most people had heard of virtual races.  We provide experience and insight, with software and processes that embody racer and sponsor suggestions over the years.

Racery’s fundraising features give each racer a connection with your charity. Each fundraising page, which includes donation goals and progress tracking, is customizeable. Racers share their page to reach complete challenges and receive awards.

A digital-first virtual event, Racery expands past fundraising to give your charity’s previous donors new social, motivational and morale-building experiences. To broaden virtual race participation and accessibility, our inclusive conversions for more than 80 activities are configurable and expandable.

• See how virtual races sponsors benefit from the virtual races on Racery’s virtual race platform.
• Try a free test race anytime.

Please note: Racery doesn’t mail medals. You can use our registration tiers to manage your own physical swag delivery, or manage the virtual bling (awards, badges, bibs, and more) directly on Racery.

Core Fundraising Features

The many competitive features of the virtual race — leaderboards, avatars on the virtual route, real-time activity feeds — also translate into competition on fundraising leaderboards. Teams and individuals can compete for miles and peer-to-peer donations, which can sometimes drive as much as $250 in donations per racers. A virtual race lasts for multiple days or weeks allowing numerous touch points for community-building. A virtual race is your way to build and nurture long-term relationships with racers, donors, and stakeholders.

• Fees: Funds go directly to the designated charity — Racery charges nothing
• Donations: Racers can donate when registering
• Donation Bonus Miles: racers earn bonus miles when surpassing fundraising goals
• P2P: Racers have peer-to-peer fundraising pages so they can compete for donations
• Leaderboards: Fundraising and mileage are shown real-time on leaderboards so individuals (and teams/groups) can compete
• Visibility: Every donation is featured in the race’s activity feed along with everyone’s exercise
• Thank yous: Racery emails thank donors and notify the racer or team credited for a donation
• Reactions: Racers can like comment on a donation in the race’s activity feed (see image)
• Filtering: In bigger events, filters can help smaller groups (companies, divisions, clubs) focus on their own fundraising logs, totals and averages
• Teams/Individuals: Racery supports races for teams or individuals. In team races, each registrant must choose a team
• Click to read lots more details about Racery’s toolkit of fundraising features 

Core Fitness and Motivational Features for Racers

Inspired by thousands of racer-requests, Racery’s features seamlessly engage racers from start to finish, on mobile phones, iOS/Android apps, and desktops.

(Read about important virtual race features that set Racery apart from its peers, our virtual race bling that’s personalized for each racer, and how Racery’s activity conversions make races bigger and more inclusive.)

• Personal tracking: participants exercise anywhere and anytime to propel their route progression (set by you, the sponsor), along with other racers’ avatars
• Bling: each racer receives a digital bib and finish award personalized with their name and entry number or finish rank, perfect to print or share online
• Google Street Views: no matter where a racer exercises, they get a 360° view of their new position on the virtual route
• Teams: depending on the sponsor’s needs, racers may compete in individually or in teams, with collective miles advancing their respective team avatars on the route and leader board, or one super-team, with everyone’s miles adding together. (More on the value of teams in a virtual race.)
• Leader boards: all participants’ relative positions update in real time on an individual leader board and (if applicable) a team leader board
• Badges: racers get extra motivation and recognition by earning badges for streaks and achievements like recruiting other participants
• Activity feed: everyone’s exercise logs are displayed a reverse-chronological-order real-time stream
• Photo gallery: racer photos are displayed in a reverse-chronological-order in real-time stream… a healthy Instagram!
• Socializing: racers can like or comment on each other’s logs and interact in the race’s message board
• Inclusive activity options: depending on the sponsors’ goals, a race can track a single activity (like running or swimming) or a more inclusive DEI-focused mix of ~80 activities (from wheel chairing to yoga to gardening)
• Automated syncing: activities logged by Garmin, Fitbit and iWatch can sync automatically if a race sponsor permits
• Motivational nudges: racers are commended for streaks and new personal record and get email nudges to exercise
• Ambassador links: racers can be credited for recruiting other racers to participate in the event
• Group filters: racers can filter a large race to focus on groups of their friends or colleagues
• Looping: ambitious racers or teams can continue logging miles until the end of the race, looping the route multiple times
• 5ks: people who prefer short events co-exist happily with fast racers in our 1-7 day virtual 5ks

Donation in a virtual race’s activity feed.

Race Organizer Tiers

Using Racery’s software, organizations can easily build and manage their own races, with reliable racer support provided by Racery. Racers pay Racery’s per racer fees in these races when registering.

Larger organizations willing to prepay Racery’s per racer fees can access additional branding, features, sponsorship opportunities, flexibility, and support. To reduce redundancy and miscommunication, all races assume a single point of contact on the customer side. More details on these two approaches…

Self serve: $0 prepay, racers pay Racery’s fees

You’ll like our self-serve races if your organization is tech savvy, not focused on branding for itself or sponsors, but still seeking a rich experience for racers. Sponsors of self-serve races build and manage their own races,

The race experience (described above) is paid for by each racer when she or he enters. The sponsor will:

• build a route or select one of Racery’s prebuilt races
• send custom announcement emails to racers
• customize the race’s name, which appears on the race page and digital bling
• rely on Racery tools, videos, FAQs and email support
• issue Stripe refunds to racers and/or donors (if necessary)
• if prepaying racers’ fees, use a credit card to cover the entire per racer fee
• get one admin seat

We strive to answer self-serve race sponsor questions within two business days. These races do not include the features and services listed below.

Professional: $4,500 in prepaid racer fees

• the charity’s logo appears on the race’s digital bib, finish award, social placard, fundraising placard and about section
• custom pin drops: spotlight landmarks, offices or partners using pin drops, with editable title, text, photo and a sponsor logo
• send mileage-triggered emails (each racer or team gets an email on passing a defined mile marker)
• select which automated emails racers receive
• opt to exclude participants from future Racery marketing communications
• ad success tracking for Facebook, Google
• support for sponsor questions within one business day
• one phone consult, up to 60 minutes
• up to two admins

Corporate: $12,500 in prepaid racer fees

• coupon dashboard (unique coupons for racers from partners or corporate sponsors)
• a sleek registration page and fundraising page designed by Racery’s staff
• Racery, not sponsor, builds a route
• automated export of all racer photos—perfect for a slideshow
• bulk racer registration, individually or in teams
• sponsor can customize the race’s digital bib, finish award and Facebook placard using Racery blueprints (see examples of bespoke bling)
• registration tiers (offer racers different entry packages or additional bling)
• e-postcards (build and automatically trigger emails containing e-postcards of landmarks)
• custom headers and footers on the automated emails driving Racery functionality
• customize the text in some automated emails
• discounted design services
• discounted per racer fees
• up to 3 admins
• four phone consults, up to 180 minutes with the race sponsor’s project manager

Fees for Custom Route Virtual Races

Set up fee

Nada. $0. Yes, zero.

Planning a charity race with an entry fee-split using Stripe? First, a successful free test race is mandatory. Second, if you’re unable to self-navigate Racery’s FAQs and DIY race building tools to create and manage a race, phone support is available to sponsors who prepay $2250 worth of racer fees.

Inclusive charity races (entry open to the public)

• One week: $7
• Two weeks: $9
• One month: $11
• Beyond one month, fundraising returns are negligible without special efforts

Virtual fundraising “Anywhere 5k” with app timer/tracker

• One day race, single log per racer: $4.50/racer
• 2-7 day race, multiple logs per racer, with each racer’s personal best tallied on our leader board, additional miles tallied on ‘overachievers’ leader board: $7/racer

Logistics

• Custom race durations are always possible, whether 6 hours, 17 days or 2 years!
• To maximize registrations and donations, we recommend charity races be announced at least one month before race start.
• Racery’s per racer entry fee is paid by each participant upon registration—or the sponsor can prepay registrations in bulk by invoice (minimum $750 nonrefundable) or by purchasing bundles of registration coupons with a credit card (no minimum, nonrefundable)
• A charity with a Stripe account can add a fee on top of Racery’s fee. For example, in a charity’s two week virtual race with a $20 registration fee, the charity receives $12 and Racery receives $8, both less credit card fees.
• Integration of wearables (Fitbit, iWatch, etc) are available on a per race basis.
• Small Stripe-enabled races require a non-refundable prepay of racer fees worth $600. (So, in the last example, getting 75 racer credits.)
• Stripe charges 2.9% and 30 cents for each transaction. A charity can create a Stripe account in under 5 minutes here.
• All races are governed by Racery’s terms of use.

Pre-built race packages

Looking to economize for a virtual race for your college, family, club or church? Don’t miss Racery’s pre-built packages—they’re sometimes cheaper than races with custom routes or include cool bling and e-postcards. Most of those races can be found here and here.

Next steps

• Discover whether or not Racery is a good fit for your company or charity by organizing a five-day free test for decision makers!
• See what other virtual race organizers say.
• Read what our virtual racers say about their experiences!
• Check out some examples of successful virtual races.

How do you make a virtual race great?

Most of what you see above is about software, right? But the best virtual races need something extra—spirit. A virtual race becomes real when enough people believe in it. Write team@racery.com if you want advice on how to achieve this feat!