Con­nell Lord

Since the end of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the re­lax­ation of health-re­lat­ed re­stric­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go and world­wide, there has been an in­crease in 5K races. The pop­u­lar­i­ty of 5K events has found a home in the hearts of fit­ness en­thu­si­asts, as well as pro­fes­sion­al and ca­su­al ath­letes.

The 3.1-mile race is al­so man­age­able, with ac­cess to na­ture and a com­mu­ni­ty at­mos­phere. So­cial track­ing apps like Stra­va have cre­at­ed new ways for run­ners to par­tic­i­pate and share their achieve­ments. The cre­ativ­i­ty of themed races and char­i­ty events, such as the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 5K or the EPIC 5K for the Chick­land Chil­dren’s Home, for ex­am­ple, con­tin­ues to boost par­tic­i­pa­tion and reg­is­tra­tion.

How­ev­er, for 5K races to be suc­cess­ful, it is un­de­ni­able that prop­er pre-plan­ning is es­sen­tial be­fore the event day. Un­der­stand­ing the prepa­ra­tion stage pro­vides valu­able in­sights for stag­ing a suc­cess­ful event.

A 5K event that caters to at least 450 par­tic­i­pants can cost on av­er­age be­tween US$14,700 and $17,600, in­clud­ing cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship and vol­un­teers. This in­cludes prizes, event op­er­a­tions, re­fresh­ments, tim­ing, se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, and mer­chan­dise, among oth­er items. All are re­quired to en­sure that the event is ro­bust and sat­is­fies the ba­sic re­quire­ments.

In this two-part se­ries, the steps in­volved in plan­ning and ex­e­cut­ing a 5k event will be ex­plained.

Step 1- Bud­get

The first step in plan­ning a 5K is es­tab­lish­ing a bud­get. It usu­al­ly takes place 6-7 months in ad­vance of the event. The bud­get cap­tures all cost line items and rev­enue streams in a gran­u­lar man­ner. It in­cludes al­lo­cat­ing funds to cov­er all ex­pens­es while en­sur­ing the event is with­in bud­getary lim­its.

On the rev­enue side, the pri­ma­ry rev­enue streams will be reg­is­tra­tion fees, spon­sor­ship, and cash and in-kind do­na­tions. On the ex­pen­di­ture side, the op­er­a­tional costs will in­clude awards and prizes, event op­er­a­tions, re­fresh­ments, pho­tog­ra­phy, tim­ing ser­vices, mis­cel­la­neous items, and tech­ni­cal sup­port.

The reg­is­tra­tion cost for a 5K event is usu­al­ly be­tween US$18 and $22, which gen­er­al­ly cov­ers the costs of medals, bibs, tim­ing ser­vices, re­fresh­ments, and, in some cas­es, a vest or t-shirt. The reg­is­tra­tion fees usu­al­ly do not cov­er the rental of au­dio sys­tems, tents, gen­er­a­tors, venue costs, se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, and the par­tic­i­pants’ good­ie items.

The fi­nan­cial dif­fer­ence be­tween rev­enue gen­er­at­ed from reg­is­tra­tion and to­tal op­er­a­tional costs has to be cov­ered by spon­sor­ship and oth­er cre­ative rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing ac­tiv­i­ties for the event to suc­ceed. The to­tal ex­pen­di­ture in­di­cates the fi­nan­cial spon­sor­ship re­quired to off­set the short­fall in reg­is­tra­tion rev­enue.

Step 2 – Write for Fi­nan­cial Spon­sor­ship

Writ­ing for fi­nan­cial spon­sor­ship is key to cov­er­ing the cost of an event. It should oc­cur six (6) months be­fore the event. It in­volves writ­ing to cor­po­rate en­ti­ties such as fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, the gen­er­al busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and gov­ern­ment agen­cies. Mak­ing per­son­al con­nec­tions through meet­ings and tele­phone calls is a good way to en­sure bet­ter re­spons­es, rather than re­ly­ing sole­ly on im­per­son­al emails, for which replies may not be forth­com­ing.

The spon­sor­ship let­ter should present in­for­ma­tion about the race or­gan­is­er and their ob­jec­tives, pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive de­tails about the event, and, most im­por­tant­ly, high­light the spe­cif­ic ben­e­fits and val­ue the spon­sor will gain from their in­volve­ment.

Of­fer­ing at­trac­tive pack­ages that in­clude the com­pa­ny’s lo­go on vests or t-shirts, race bibs, and lan­yards are some strate­gies to at­tract spon­sor­ship. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, or­gan­is­ers can have the com­pa­ny’s name on tro­phies and plaques.

Spon­sor­ship re­quests should be rea­son­able, as com­pa­nies op­er­ate un­der fi­nan­cial con­straints and may have mul­ti­ple cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to ful­fil with­in their fi­nan­cial year. Keep­ing track of spon­sor­ship over time helps in as­sess­ing whether ef­forts need to be in­ten­si­fied or ad­just­ed.

With the bud­get fi­nalised and spon­sor­ship re­quests in mo­tion, what comes next? The next ar­ti­cle will out­line the next cru­cial steps in de­liv­er­ing a suc­cess­ful 5K event.

Con­nell Lord, MSc; BSc., Se­nior Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­sis­tant (Ac­counts), St Au­gus­tine Acad­e­my of Sport, Fac­ul­ty of Sport, UWI, St. Au­gus­tine. Lord is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing an MPhil in Sport.