Hope Travels: Your Day of Movement Toolkit (2023)

Hope Travels is back! If our Hope Travels 5K on May 20, 2023, inspires you to plan your own Day of Movement fundraiser to support a Help Hope Live campaign, here’s everything you need to know to get moving.

Hope Travels is our name for a Day of Movement fundraiser you can plan with your Client Services Coordinator to enjoy movement, fitness, and fun with your community to benefit a Help Hope Live campaign.

Our official Day of Movement is Saturday, May 20. Join supporters across the country who will be participating in Hope Travels that day, or choose a different day that works best for your community!

A Hope Travels fundraiser allows you to:

Rally your community to raise funds in honor of a Help Hope Live client
Raise awareness of the reason why you fundraise
Promote health, wellness, and physical activity (indoors or outside)
Gather a team of supporters
Reach a personal goal
Engage supporters in-person or virtually
Allow supporters to choose their own place, pace, and activity

Your first step to planning a Day of Movement is to get in touch with your Coordinator. Throughout this toolkit, we offer tips to help you get started.

Customized Hope Travels materials for your Day of Movement. Get printable or digital flyers, QR codes, and other materials to share.
The official Hope Travels logo to add to your own materials or items, such as t-shirts.
Guidance on how to use your Campaign Page to share this fundraiser.
Communication support and advice. We can suggest how to approach email blast campaigns, social media, letters to your community, outreach to businesses and potential sponsors, and more.

A flyer for the Saturday, May 20, 2023 Hope Travels Day of Movement Zoom dance party for Edward Testa

You get to decide how to structure your Day of Movement, but here’s our advice on how to get started fast:

Finalize key details with your Coordinator (we provide a starting point below)
Create a Hope Travels event on your Campaign Page
Collect donations throughout your Hope Travels event (ideas below)
Promote and share!

A Hope Travels event page example on a client Campaign Page features a Hope Travels flyer, a May 20 date and time, and fake text for location and primary contact. The title of the page is Hope Travels 5K - Virtual or In Person!

See Example Page

Here are a few key things you’ll want to nail down first. If you’d like input from us, just ask your Coordinator.

In-Person or Virtual?

You can hold an in-person Hope Travels event, invite your community to participate virtually from anywhere, or both.

When?

Our national Hope Travels day is Saturday, May 20. While we encourage participation on this day, a different date may work best for you and your community, and that’s ok! If your event is primarily in-person, you’ll want to consider weather and location availability. Before you choose, search online to see if any other major local events are happening on the same date.

Donations?

Decide how you’ll collect donations for this fundraiser. Suggestions further down in this post!

Sponsors?

Would you like to reach out to local businesses and other organizations to sponsor your fundraiser? This approach is similar to a golf tournament: you can start as high or low as you want for sponsorship levels based on what’s realistic for your community and which promotional benefits you can offer. Common benefits include social media mentions or including a sponsor’s logo on your Hope Travels materials (like flyers and t-shirts).

What Else?

As you think about how you can plan an engaging Day of Movement, let your creativity come out! You know your community best: what will make a Day of Movement fun for the loved ones and supporters you know?

There are a few different options you can use to collect donations to a Help Hope Live campaign during your Hope Travels fundraiser. Here are a few ideas—discuss the best fit with your Coordinator.

Participants make a donation up front to participate.
Participants can fundraise, on their own or as a team, and donate the funds they’ve raised once your Hope Travels fundraiser ends.
Participants can collect pledges (such as $10 per mile) and donate the funds they’ve raised through pledges once your Hope Travels fundraiser ends.

Always offer your community an alternative way to make a donation.

If they don’t want to participate in your Day of Movement, that’s okay: give them an easy way to donate to the Help Hope Live campaign instead.

We can give you advice on how to communicate this backup option.

You can join our special Hope Travels campaign on the fundraising platform Bonfire to help support your Day of Movement fundraising efforts. Sell t-shirts, water bottles, or countless other products with a unique design—click here to get started.

It’s easy to sell products on Bonfire! Just create an account, use our pre-loaded Hope Travels template, and let your Coordinator know you’re participating so we can track your fundraiser together.

Start Your Bonfire

If you have an active community online, you’ll want to make social media part of your Hope Travels fundraising efforts. Post photos and videos in the weeks leading up to your Day of Movement (and throughout the special day, too!)

Supporters can post photos of their progress or training efforts, capture special sights as they participate (outdoors or inside), or anything else that gets them engaged with you on social.

Don’t forget to tag us so we can see your community’s Hope Travels creativity!

A collage of social media posts about Hope Travels participation featuring a client in a teal Hope Travels t-shirt outdoors, a second client using her braces to move down the sidewalk, and a digital map of a 5K walking route.

As you plan your Hope Travels event, get creative with ways for your supporters to participate. Here are just a few ideas for a creative Day of Movement. Keep in mind most of these ideas can be virtual OR in-person!

Ask local running groups to collect pledges or donate to plan a group run for a cause.
Set an exercise goal for yourself and share it with your community—they can donate to show their support, and you’ll go for your goal while they sit on the couch!
Ask a fitness-lover you know to host a free virtual fitness class. Supporters can donate before or after they tune in: capture their email addresses so you can follow up with a link to the client Campaign Page and a thank-you for their participation!
Invite your supporters to pick a unique Day of Movement activity that appeals to them: instead of walking or running, they could hike, roll, dance, bike, swim, or something else!
See if a local fitness trainer can put together a “Hope Travels Bootcamp” with suggested activities and pacing. Supporters can donate to get access to the Bootcamp instructions and participate together (from anywhere) on your Hope Travels day!
Ask local activity or fitness studios to offer a special class or activity for your Day of Movement. They can donate a portion of the class fees to your fundraiser! Ask local gyms, indoor rock-climbing centers, yoga studios, Zumba classes, and other businesses.
For families, organize a baby crawl-a-thon or a play-a-thon.
Host a virtual race! Do you know some dedicated runners? Set a date and time to “start the clock” and see who can complete a set distance first. They can prove their distance and time using their favorite fitness phone app.
Pair your Day of Movement with an existing community event. Is there a spring egg hunt in a local park? See if you can reach out to the organizers to turn the event into a Hope Travels fundraiser!
Pets welcome! Challenge supporters to walk their furry friends a set distance during your Day of Movement—and of course, cute pet photos are a must for social sharing!
Plan a dance-a-thon, dance party, or virtual/Zoom dance party.
Love the water? Plan a kayaking trip, a pool noodle fight, or a swim race (or you can count laps or time spent in the pool overall). Or stay slightly more dry with a giant water balloon battle!
Get the kids moving with some classic fun. How about tag or freeze tag, hide-and-seek, laser tag, or dodgeball?
Add a little mystery and excitement to the mix with a geocaching event or a scavenger hunt.
If kids in your community are active with school sports, engage teams to sign up for a sports shoot-out or dribbling drills for soccer, basketball, or any other sport. Or ask the local crew teams about a row-a-thon!
Get your community involved in a new activity! Whether it’s a spin-a-thon, Zumba, yoga (goats optional), aerobics, or a scooter race, consider rounding up friends and neighbors to try something brand-new together.
Got any board game fans or gamers in your circle? Plan a giant game of chess, Chutes and Ladders, checkers, Candyland, or Twister!
Keep everyone laughing and encouraged by putting a silly spin on a traditional race or activity. How about a Snail’s Pace Race: whoever moves the slowest wins!
Plan an outdoor Field Day for kids or adults. Three-legged races, egg-and-spoon relays, or potato sack races are classic favorites.
Plan a wheelchair workout – get inspired by our virtual fitness sessions!
Get kids moving or bring out the kid in each of the adults in your life with a Zombies vs. Humans game, a giant pillow fight, or a Live-Action Roleplay (LARP) event!