Dance for Sick Kids
“Ronald McDonald House Charities gives seriously ill children the best gift of all - their families” says the Dance for Sick Kids website.
Ronald McDonald House Charities provide safe and welcoming environments for children and their families while they have to attend hospital. They quantify this in terms of impact, as “nights” of lodging and care funded. How do they fund those crucial nights?
Allow us to introduce Dance for Sick Kids, winner of Best Virtual Fundraising Event at the Charity Virtual Event Awards 2020.
Dancing in the face of adversity
They’ve achieved this through launching an event unlike any other during a time of absolute confusion and crisis. Just as the COVID pandemic was taking its full effect, charities launched virtual events in a way that the sector has never seen before; and amongst the fog of virtual runs, walks and jogs - Dance for Sick Kids was tuning into Tik Tok’s dance scene. The event shone through with something truly fun, something people could do from home, and with entry levels for everyone!
Trying something different
Virtual fundraising is for many charities has been an unknown - a scary space in the fundraising ecosystem that hasn’t yet proven it’s worth (or at least, this much was true as the world first went into Lockdown). It would have been very easy for the team behind Dance for Sick Kids to commit to the already-proven tenacity of app-tracked running events, or selfie share campaigns. Not only did this campaign take bravery, but it needed a team who were totally bought into the nature of the event. Together, they connected with dance schools, corporate teams, individuals isolating at home, parents and children, and as a community created a torrent of user inspiring user generated content the likes of which is not often seen by fundraising events.
Dance For Sick Kids let dancers set their own goals in custom reg flows
Sign-up was exceptionally easy, and very inclusive. It was designed to let people of all ages and abilities take part. They could choose from three levels of commitment to the challenge, each representing a different type of participant to the event organisers.
This allowed people to feel safe in their involvement, but also proud of what they would go on to achieve. Not least of all because of the custom trigger emails they would receive on registration!
...and drove activation using gamification badges rooted in key behaviors
Making great use of Funraisin's varied gamification badges, Dance For Sick Kids drove supporter engagement by focusing on key supporter behaviors. Each fundraiser can activate their badges which appear on their personal fundraising page. By encouraging their supporters and teams this way, Dance Crews were proud to show off their achievements!
Custom registrations, social inspiration & gamification
Want to hear how custom registration flows can improve your event?
Many charities like Ronald McDonald House Charities - Greater Western Sydney, are using custom reg flows to offer flexibility to their fundraisers. What many don't realise is that when the registration flow is opened up, activation and conversion rates can be increased, fundraisers empowered, and donations encouraged. As standard, the funraisin platform's ref flows can trigger gamification based on activities (i.e. KM's logged), fundraising goals (i.e. self donate, 50% of target reached) and engagement behaviour (i.e. profile photo upload, blog update).
An inspiration social wall celebrated their dancers and supporters!
The Inspiration wall allowed dancers to send in their videos to appear on the instagram wall, which became a showcase of non-stop talent. Kids, Teens, Adults and Parents dance their hearts away and show off their skills to inspire others. On top of that, the campaign showed a great understanding of it’s audience. It showed huge empathy by creating not just variant registration flows, but also giving supporters the freedom to set their own limits. Likewise, they encouraged “dance crews” to join, but kept it flexible so anyone could make a dance crew team.
Team fundraising driven by Marko Panzic & Jarryd Byrne
Two of australia's dance icons joined in with the campaign to provide dance lessons and encouragement to their teams! Well known to the enthusiasts among the dance troupes, appearing in shows such as X-Factor, Dancing with The Stars and more, they added an extra splash of excitement to an event already full of talent and fun.
Marko's The Dream Dance Company registered as a "Dance Crew"
An amazing way to drive team registration was to set an example! Marko's dance company, The Dream Dance Company registered as a team (or "Dance Crew") which encouraged more dance crews to register, and showcase their talents.
They were joined by international cheerleading squad The Oxygen All-Stars
The Oxygen All Stars, an international, award winning, cheerleading and dance troupe hosted free zoom dance sessions during May 2020 to cheer on the dancers and raise money for sick kids too. One side effect of this, is that the dance crews that registered together, really showed off their camaraderie by appearing on each others pages in their “Team members” section.
