She’s the First

Summary

In 2013, She’s the First launched their Run the World campaign, which raised funds through a variety of fitness-related activities. Volunteers could sign up for runs and races in order to raise money for the cause, and She’s the First also partnered with numerous fitness studios to receive proceeds from their fitness classes.

About

She’s the First provides scholarships to girls in low-income countries with the goal of creating first-generation graduates and our next generation of global leaders. Run the World is one of their key peer-to-peer fundraising events.

Grants and donations from high-net-worth individuals cover the costs of She’s the First’s operations, so all proceeds from their campaigns are able to be solely allocated towards sponsorships.

The Challenge

In its inaugural year, She’s the First set a lofty goal of $50,000 for their very first Run the World campaign. Due to the fact that they rely almost solely on their group of volunteers and their partnerships with fitness studios in order to carry off this campaign, they needed a central, easily-accessed online hub for their entire fundraising community.

With peer-to-peer fundraising at the core of their campaign strategy, they also wanted a simple way to encourage a bit of friendly competition between participants—fostering a sense of community and increasing donations.

Additionally, since Millennials make up a large part of She’s the First’s audience, social media and powerful blog posts were key pieces of their promotion and engagement strategy. Having a space where social media and the important updates about their campaign could be centralized was crucial for their success.

How CauseVox Helped

CauseVox helped She’s the First come incredibly close to their ambitious goal for their very first Run the World campaign. Although She’s the First has a remarkably small staff of only three full-time team members, they were able to easily establish and manage a fundraising site that was branded, polished, and easy for participants to use.

Additionally, since CauseVox makes it simple to setup personal and team fundraising pages, She’s the First was able to track and share each individual’s progress—helping them to encourage the friendly competition piece they were hoping to bring to life.

With numerous social media integrations on the site, She’s the First’s Millennial audience was able to not only show their support, but share it—further increasing awareness of the very first campaign.

Finally, because the Run the World campaign involved so many different volunteers and partnerships, the easy to access fundraising site was the perfect, centralized spot where all of those different parties could stay updated on important campaign information—saving plenty of phone calls and headaches for She’s the First’s small staff.

Their Results

Run the World raised $42,106 in their very first year and was a huge success for She’s the First.

They had numerous participants reach personal milestones—like running marathons and far exceeding their personal fundraising goals. And, the campaign was a great way to form partnerships with local fitness studios. Today, She’s The First Still runs their Run The World Campaign annually on CauseVox, as well as many other campaigns.