Relay for Life

Relay For Life is a signature fundraising event for the American Cancer Society designed to celebrate cancer survivorship, remember those lost to the disease, and fight back by raising money to support cancer research and programs. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight community events during which team members take turns walking or running around a track or path throughout the evening.

As part of its commitment to event participants, Relay For Life provides individu­als with easy-to-use, innovative tools which empower them to be more effective fundraisers. Since 2009, Relay has used Charity Dynamics’ Boundless Fundraising social networking application which enables participants to extend their fundrais­ing activities to Facebook. For the 2011 event season, Relay For Life decided to add the Boundless Fundraising mobile application to further strengthen their participants’ fundraising capabilities.

Relay For Life iPhone Application

American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life iPhone application is available for free to any individual who registers online for a Relay event. The app allows participants to:

• Track their fundraising progress
• Quickly and easily update their personal fundraising page
• View a list of their donors
• Send emails from their iPhone asking for support or to thank donors
• Stay updated on important event details

Relay For Life promotes the app to participants via different channels: during the registration process, on the Relay’s main website, on individual event sites, in the Participant Center and through coaching emails during each event season.

Results

To better understand the overall fundraising of participants who utilized the Boundless Fundraising mobile application, an analysis measuring key performance indicators was conducted on a sample of 2011 Relay events.

Across all of the metrics measured for analysis, participants using the Relay For Life iPhone application for fundraising sig­nificantly outperformed their peers who didn’t use the app. Additionally, returning participants who used the iPhone app in 2011 saw a considerable lift to their fundraising performance.

Comparison of iPhone users to non-users for 2011

• iPhone users raised 180% more than participants who fundraised but did not use the application
  • First-time participants using the iPhone app raised 135% more than their peers.
  • Returning participants using the iPhone app raised 240% more than their peers.
• iPhone users collected almost three times (3x) as many individual giftsas participants who fundraised but did not use the application.
• iPhone users set their goal 162% higher on average than participants who fundraised but did not use the application.
  • First-time participants using the iPhone app set their goal 111% higher than their peers.
  • Returning participants using the iPhone app set their goal 235% higher than their peers.
• iPhone users were more than twice (2x) as likely to update their personal pageas their peers
• One Relay participant raised nearly $5,000 through emails sent using their iPhone application!

Comparison of Returning Participant Behavior

• Returning participants using the iPhone app raised 58% more in 2011 than they did in 2010. Returning partic­ipants not using the iPhone app raised 18% more in 2011.
• Returning participants using the iPhone app set their goal 85% higher in 2011 compared to 2010. Returningparticipants not using the iPhone app set their goal 5% higher in 2011.
• Returning participants using the iPhone app were 24% more likely to update their personal page in 2011. Returning participants not using the iPhone app were 10% more likely to update their personal page compared to the previous year.