In 2025, the EMF Distance Challenge set its sights higher than ever—determined not just to sustain momentum but to smash records and ignite the next generation of fundraisers. To do it, they teamed up with Funraisin and Nuclavis, creating a mobile-first experience that put every step, mile, and donation right in participants’ pockets. Now in their fourth year on Funraisin—but their very first powered by a Nuclavis mobile app—the stage was set for a breakthrough campaign.
Every key measure of success surged in 2025. From registrations (up 24%) and campaign revenue (up 39%) to online fundraising and average donation size (up 5%), the EMF Distance Challenge outperformed across the board—zooming past their $1.25M target and setting a new benchmark for impact.
We chatted with Maggie Dombroski, Director of Development at Expect Miracles Foundation, to unpack the key strategies behind their record-breaking success.
About the EMF Distance Challenge
Expect Miracles Foundation (EMF) rallies the financial services industry to invest in life-saving cancer research while advancing the financial and emotional health of people impacted by cancer.
Each May, EMF invites thousands of people worldwide to take part in the Distance Challenge—an eight-day, virtual fitness fundraiser that turns everyday movement into impact. Participants sign up to run, walk, bike, or choose any activity they enjoy, log their miles through Funraisin or the mobile app, and raise funds along the way. With real-time leaderboards, team competition, and bragging rights on the line, the Distance Challenge blends fitness, philanthropy, and community into one powerful experience.
It’s part fitness challenge, part fundraising sprint, part global community—uniting people across companies, countries, and time zones in a collective race to leave cancer behind.
Now in its 6th year, the 2025 event mobilized nearly 2,100 participants across 21 countries. Together they logged more than 43,000 miles and raised $1.39M, proving that when an industry moves together, it can achieve extraordinary impact.
The challenge: Sustaining growth to fuel the fight against cancer
Since its launch in 2020, the EMF Distance Challenge has carved out a unique place in the financial services industry—engaging busy professionals through a competitive, mission-driven experience that keeps building year after year.
Fresh off their first $1M milestone, the team faced a new challenge: How could they raise the bar again and deliver an even bigger impact?
Key challenges and opportunities:
Driving deeper engagement, especially with young professionals
A growing number of the Distance Challenge’s ambitious participants were young professionals. How could the campaign best attract and support this group?
Managing global logistics
With participants logging both miles and kilometers around the world, how could they unify tracking and encourage worldwide competition?
Balancing fundraising and fitness activity
Some of the most competitive and engaged participants were either at the top of the fundraising or fitness leaderboards, but not both. How could they showcase everyone’s overall impact on the campaign?
Maximizing matched giving days
With two successful Matched Giving Days last year, how could they build on past success and incentivize even more fundraising?
“This year, we developed new strategies to engage young professionals. We were deliberate about ensuring our tools were ready for this audience. Our partnership with Funraisin and Nuclavis elevated our fundraising experience with mobile-first tools that empowered participants to reach their goals!”
Maggie Dombroksi
Director of Development, Expect Miracles Foundation
The solution: Leveraging technology to inspire fundraisers and power impact
When Expect Miracles Foundation asked Funraisin to help amplify their fight against cancer, we were all in. As long-time partners, we’ve continually found new ways to apply our technology to their challenges and fuel their mission.
For the 2025 Distance Challenge, EMF tapped into a series of custom Funraisin updates designed to engage participants and elevate results:
- Identify and track young professionals: A custom registration question allowed EMF to identify, segment, and benchmark young professionals for the first time—unlocking deeper engagement and more strategic coaching.
- Deliver modern payment options: Adding Stripe Link, Apple Pay, and Google Pay met the expectations of younger audiences and boosted the average gift size by 5%.
- Provide mobile-first tools for busy professionals: By integrating Funraisin with a Nuclavis-powered mobile app, EMF made it simple for participants to engage, take action, and track every mile on the go.
- Cater to global participants: Funraisin automatically converted kilometers to miles, keeping competition seamless and inclusive across regions.
- Demonstrate impact across fundraising and activity: Custom Total Impact Leaderboards combined fitness and fundraising results, giving more participants bragging rights and recognition.
- Inspire greater generosity with matched giving: Instead of two smaller giving days, EMF launched one larger matched giving day—driving urgency and exceeding their goal.
Custom registration fields for targeted supporter strategies
Expect Miracles Foundation saw a growing wave of young professionals eager to join the fight against cancer. This group brought high energy and strong participation, but didn’t take home the top fundraising bragging rights.
EMF recognized an opportunity: support young professionals to succeed today, while also cultivating the next generation of high-impact fundraisers and future major donors.
To capture this segment, EMF added a custom registration question inviting participants to self-identify as young professionals (ages 21–39). This simple step unlocked several benefits:
Clearer identification →
Visibility into a fast-growing audience that was highly active with potential to help amplify impact.
Community connection →
A pathway to their real-world Young Professionals group, fostering engagement and competition.
Target strategy →
Tailored programming and pre-event activities to boost motivation, retention, and performance.
Actionable insight →
Data on how young professionals fundraise and move, used to refine long-term strategy.
With these benchmarks in hand, EMF can track young professionals’ unique behaviors as leading indicators—using them to refine engagement tactics today and inform longer-term strategy.
Young professionals:
Made up 37% of the registered participants
Raised more than $200,000, up 700% from $25k
Activated 68% of the time
Raised $428 on average
Secured an average of 5 donations each
Preferred running/
walking over biking
Logged an average of 20 miles
Optimized mobile payment options
By expanding to Funraisin’s mobile payment options (Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Stripe Link) EMF didn’t just modernize the donor experience—they created new revenue. These frictionless options made it easier for supporters to give, while directly lifting results.
The fundraising impact:
- 23% of all donations came via Apple Pay
- 29% via Stripe Link
- Together, these methods processed $400K+ in revenue
- Average donation size increased by $5
- Stripe Link gifts averaged 26% higher than credit card gifts the prior year—driving nearly $36,000 in additional revenue
By meeting donors with the payment methods they prefer, EMF turned technology upgrades into a meaningful fundraising advantage.
Seamlessly integrated mobile app
To boost engagement, EMF launched a fully integrated mobile app powered by Nuclavis—perfectly aligned with their focus on young professionals who expect a mobile-first experience.
The app put fundraising and fitness at participants’ fingertips: they could log activity, send donation appeals, and share progress in real time. Adoption was strong, with 43% of participants downloading the app. Appeals sent via the mobile app yielded 16% of the total online donations.
The user experience was further enhanced by a full two-way integration with Funraisin. Every step, ride, or workout logged in the app synced instantly to participants’ fundraising pages, while activity logged on the website flowed back into the app.
Funraisin is the only platform that offers this kind of complete two-way sync between activity tracking and supporter fundraising pages—ensuring participants always saw their full impact, no matter how they engaged.
“The two-way integration between Nuclavis and Funraisin made it easy for participants to move from desktop to mobile and see all of their fundraising and activity data wherever they were.”
Maggie Dombroksi
Director of Development, Expect Miracles Foundation
A global playing field
With participants joining from around the world, EMF needed a way to unify miles and kilometers into a fair competition.
Funraisin delivered a custom leaderboard solution that automatically converted kilometers into miles and rolled everything into a single, global leaderboard.
The result: every participant—no matter where they were or how they tracked—competed on the same playing field. And because the leaderboards pulled in data directly from the Nuclavis mobile app, the experience was smooth, accurate, and motivating.
Integrated fundraising + fitness leaderboards
Fundraising success and fitness activity don’t always go hand in hand. Some of EMF’s most active participants weren’t at the top of the fundraising leaderboard, while top fundraisers weren’t always logging the most miles.
To recognize every kind of contribution, EMF worked with Funraisin to create the Total Impact Leaderboard—a custom view that combines fundraising and activity data into one score. This reframed the competition, giving more participants a chance to shine and motivating excellence on both fronts.
For young professionals in particular, it meant greater visibility. Even if they weren’t raising the highest dollar amounts, their activity and overall impact could be celebrated—deepening engagement and driving stronger results across the campaign.
Doubling donations with high-impact matched giving
To spark excitement and maximize giving, EMF tapped into Funraisin’s built-in Matched Giving feature—making it quick and simple to launch a powerful fundraising boost.
With just a few clicks in the platform, EMF could:
- Define how much matching funds were available (e.g., the $150K pool)
- Set match multipliers (e.g., 1x match for every dollar donated)
- Establish timeframes and countdown timers to drive urgency
- Display a matched giving badge or sponsor logo on fundraising pages—everything visible and functional right away
This flexibility and built-in automation allowed EMF to frame Double Donation Day on May 15 as a high-energy, limited-time event that galvanized donors.
The results
EMF didn’t just hit their goals—they shattered them.
Every major metric climbed year over year, proving the power of smarter strategy and seamless technology:
- Campaign revenue up 39% → $1.4M raised (beating the $1.25M goal by $150K)
- Online fundraising up 22% → $1,114,520 (up from $912,320)
- Double Donation Day up 34% → $149,247 in matchable gifts, fueling a $300K day
- Average donation size up 5% → $113.13 (vs. $107.99 last year)
What’s next for EMF?
Building on their record-breaking year, EMF is already planning the next wave of innovation. Key priorities include:
- Deepening young professional engagement → using this year’s data insights to refine strategy and drive even greater impact.
- Expanding donor choice → adding new tools like donation nudges, sticky “donate” buttons, and Venmo to make giving easier than ever.
- Enhancing participant experience → introducing additional leaderboards, a swag shop, and new ways to recognize team captains.
- Smarter communications → leveraging Funraisin’s new Messages Module to deliver the right messages at the right time and accelerate fundraising.
With these enhancements, EMF is set to raise the bar again—creating more ways for participants to engage and more impact for the cancer community.
Next year, we will be giving our website a glow up to align with new internal marketing initiatives. I’m excited to use Funraisin’s Visual Builder to enhance our website experience this year!
Maggie Dombroksi
Director of Development, Expect Miracles Foundation
EMF Distance Challenge
The Results
$1.4M raised
2,100 people registered
Registrations up 24%
Campaign revenue up 39%
Online fundraising up 22%
Matched Giving Day up 34%
Average donation size up 5%
Want to give your fundraisers the best possible journey?
See how Funraisin helps you create fundraising experiences they’ll never forget. We’re here to help with everything fundraising—from bold campaign ideas, to optimized donation flows, personalized email journeys, and a seamless event experiences.
