The Walk for Mental Health
Event
A month long virtual fitness event challenging the community to walk or run 40km, 60km, 80km or 100km for Australians impacted by mental illness and suicide.
$17.6m
raised in first 2 years
40%
increase in 2021 participants
85%
Increase in 2021 income
The Brief
Black Dog Institute approached us in 2020 to develop a new national event that would leverage Mental Health Awareness month in October.
With 1 in 5 Australians living with a mental illness, the challenge was to create an inclusive event concept that supported the cause and encouraged people of all ages and abilities to participate.
Our Solution
The first step was to come up with a compelling event concept that was easy for people to participate in and aligned with the BDI core values and mission: One Foot Forward was born!
We developed the event strategy, creative assets and communications plan to encourage the community to ‘Walk this October during Mental Health awareness Month to support the 1 in 5 Australians living with a mental illness’.
We scoped and built the website and designed a suite of social resources to maximise fundraising and social sharing.
Facebook advertising was the main acquisition channel which complimented a series of recruitment emails before we moved into the welcome and engagement journey to strengthen connection to the cause.
And wow, we never expected the magic that unfolded – not only the incredible fundraising results but more importantly, the way that Australians united in solidarity to support those living with mental illness.
What We Did
Concept
Strategy
Proposition
Creative
Website
Acquisition
Retention
Content
Analysis
The Results
The first and second year of One Foot Forward exceeded all expectations and set a new national record for a first-year fundraising event.
We smashed the 2020 inaugural event target of $600,000 to raise a whopping $6.2M! More than 30,000 Australians participated in this first year event, well above the original target of 7,250.
The challenge was then to improve on the results for 2021, which we did!
- $11.2M raised, making a total of $17.6M in the first two years of the event
- 43,017 participants, 40% up on 2020
- $369 average raised, 12% up on 2020
- 68% fundraising activation rate, 12% up on 2020
We can’t wait to work on this event again in 2022 and continue to support Australians living with mental health illness.
