Do you have a family member that is a survivor, has a special need, or benefits from the charity you’d support financially?  Those personal reasons are another strong inspiration to participate in a race event as a Charity Runner.  Thinking about the people or children that benefit from the money you raise may provide the needed extra encouragement you need to get up and out the door to train for your race.

Some people love the great feeling of camaraderie they get when they are a part of a team. Many Fargo Marathon Charity Teams give shirts or hats to Charity Runners so that the runner looks and feels like a member. Team-up with family, friends or co-workers to train together, raise money together and run together. 

It’s worth the mention that money you give to charity does have a tax benefit. Check with your tax professional on what a tax deduction can mean for you.

Whether you raise $150 or $10,500 you can’t dismiss the feeling you get after 3 or 26.2 miles –however fast or slow it goes – that overall self-satisfaction that you got off the couch, you beat the bystander, you put one-foot in front of the other and you did it all for someone else. A pretty great feeling.

Rachel, Reach Partners &
Project Manager for Fargo Marathon Charity Teams

All of the ideas in the world won't change the balance of leadership without action. But sometimes action seems daunting without guidance. As suggested within the Woman's Fund conversations, a mentor is a powerful relationship that can be a place to explore, learn, and foster a budding leader.

Jenni Luke, CEO of Step Up Women’s Network provides a broad definition of what a mentor is and does. Each of us at Reach Partners certainly have the traditional archetype of a mentor in our lives but also have people who come and go who have helped process career choices and decisions.  Having a mentor and being a mentor are invaluable experiences.

Become a mentor or find a mentor. As Ms. Luke states, don’t go in with, “will you be my mentor?” start by asking someone you admire for a coffee date or if you see potential in a person reach out to them to grow the relationship.

Rachel, Reach Partners

The focus of the Women’s Fund April 2014 grant is Women in Leadership and has over $40,000 to award in this area. Groups and organizations without a 501 (c)(3) may use a fiscal sponsorship for a short-term project. More info...

The question of event design recently came up in a group I follow. It’s a topic that I like to think about since I’ve worked on events that range from bare bones to highly designed.  How important is the design of your event? I have come to find deliberate or not, an event is always designed.

Every element carries meaning, intended or not. Event planning combines strategy and preparation to achieve a desired experience in a particular time and space. Materials, signage, food, seating, layout, setting, messages are some of the elements that contribute to the experience for a participant. While these environmental factors color an event and determine whether the audience will be comfortable, the subtexts of the elements always leave an impression.

There are those who mean to control the perspective of the participant and manage the details to convey an intended experience, feeling and tone.  They consider the event for potential risks and undesired situations have been anticipated or mitigated. They study and consider many facets of their audience, research to anticipate needs and develop the exacting elements, test and evaluate the end result to improve the next. The results are designed to convey the intention.

There are those that do not place value in thinking about how the environmental factors will feel to an attendee or how those factors will play on perception.  That too is by design. The event may be a repeat so the audience already has assumptions on the context of the event. The content may outweigh the context and the setting is simply not important to the delivery.  The results here too are designed to convey the intention.

Both perspectives are subjective, but design is always important.

Rachel, Reach Partners