Courtesy of Yolo County SPCA and basykes
When you organize a walkathon, job #1 is to get volunteers. With a bunch of great teams on board, walkathon planning falls into place naturally. Start getting volunteers months before the walkathon. Focus on team leaders but the more you can fill the teams, the easier it will be to get those leaders. Put out signup sheets everywhere you can.
Here is a table showing typical volunteer roles. If your walkathon has other volunteers, please add them by commenting (click on “comment”, below). This is based on a walkathon with about 300 walkers, from 8:30 AM – 4 PM, so you can adjust accordingly.
| Committee | Size (incl. Leader) | Description |
| Walkathon Chair | 1 – 3 people | Recruits team leaders and helps fill teams with volunteers. Determines specific cause. Provides backup to all team leaders. Manages overall timeline. |
| Insurance and legal liaison | 1 | Addresses city government, police and insurance issues. |
| T Shirts | 3 | Creates, sells, and distributes T Shirts |
| Publicity | 2 | Creates slogan and logo. Creates flyers, emails, newsletter articles. If necessary, works with the press, maintains blog. |
| Technology | 1 | Selects and sets up online fundraising system. Works closely with Registration and Treasurer. Sets up blog for publicity chair if necessary. |
| Registration | 15 | Makes sure everyone has registered at the beginning, checked out at the end. Creates registration forms, punch cards or bead lanyards, etc. |
| Treasurer | 2 | Handles all finances. Collects money from all walkers. |
| Concessions | 26 | Plans food, purchases food, prepares, sells and serves throughout event. Prepares orange slices prior to event. |
| Entertainment | 2 | Organizes any music, dancing, etc, and gets necessary furniture and equipment for entertainment |
| Course Volunteers | 41 | Organizes all course volunteers (hole punchers for punch cards to count laps, awards at key milestones, squirters if it’s hot), keeps water and orange slice tables stocked. Purchases supplies for course related activities like awards, hole puncher tools, lanyards for punch cards, etc. |
| Sponsors | 1 | Get sponsors who pay for T Shirts, possibly pay for more. Publicize sponsor names. |
| Course layout, setup and cleanup | 4 | Design the course. Set it up prior to event. Take down yellow tape after event. |
| Site layout, setup and cleanup | 8 | Map the rest of the site – where to place check in tables, food, music, etc. Then set up to start, take down at end. |
| Photography | 20 | Try to get a photo of every participant. Create slide show. |
| First Aide | 1 | Provide basic first aide. Be CPR certified and available the entire day of the event. |
| Pinch Hitters | 4 | Pick up anything that falls through the cracks. |
| Crazy Hair | 1 | Give wacky hair styles. |
| Certificates and awards event | 2 | Arrange for slide show, create certificates for all participants including miles walked, put on assembly, recognize top walkers, announce money earned |
| Group financial chairperson | 1 | This person handles finances for your group in events outside of this walkathon. He/She should verify count for all payments collected by the Walkathon Treasurer, and make deposits. |
Ready to read some more? Here’s the secret to recruiting volunteers.
Learn more about The Walkathon Guide book.
Filed under: advanced preparation, publicity, volunteers | Tagged: advanced preparation, fundraising, planning a walkathon, publicity, volunteers, waiver form, walkathon chairs |
Walkathon Guide 
Thanks for the great site and helpful 411 on Walk-a-Thons! We’ve got an easy-to-use online tool that helps with volunteer sign ups – http://www.VolunteerSpot.com. Schools and charities across the country use us to quickly sign up volunteers on a private online calendar – and our automated reminder emails help everyone keep their commitments. No more clipboards and phone-tag to coordinate the event!
If you have a clipboard full of names already – no problem – enter assignments and we’ll send confirmation and reminder messages for you.
Please check us out at http://www.VolunteerSpot.com
Diana, Glad you like it and your service looks very helpful. Be sure to send your info to idealware.org as they are helping groups learn about various online tools available to them. -Lee
Useful info, nice blog, thanks.
Hi Paul, Glad it helps! -Lee