Charity Marathon at Audley
Charity Marathon at Audley
Charity Marathon at Audley End House
Project Initiation Document
DRAFT
HCRC
Contents
1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
2. INTRODUCTION 3
3. BUSINESS OBJECTIVES 3
4. PROJECT OBJECTIVES 3
5. CONSTRAINTS 4
6. ASSUMPTIONS 4
7. PROJECT SCOPE 4
8. PROJECT FEASIBILITY 5
9. ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE 6
10. WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE 7
11. ESTIMATES OF DURATIONS AND DEPENDENCIES 7
12. REFERENCES 7
1. Executive Summary Charity Marathon at Audley End House
The purpose of this document is to assess the feasibility of organising a Charity Marathon at Audley End House in early June 2021 and to provide an initial project plan for the promotion of the event. The objective of the charity project is to raise a minimum of £20,000 through the promotional activities as well as during the event. The promotion project is expected to start on the 12/04/2021 and to include the activities related to recruiting competitors and elite runners, sourcing and signing sponsors and advertisers and publicising the event through various media. The expected surplus from the promotion and running of the event is estimated at £6,000 and £14,000 respectively, which should enable meeting of the project objectives. The main project risk is the poor weather, but as the event is held early in June, the temperature should be fairly mild and to mitigate the impact of the risk, the route will be planned to ensure shelter from the rain. Based on the findings listed below, this feasibility study has confirmed that organisation of the marathon event is feasible, and that a project manager should be assigned to proceed with detailed project planning. To that end, a team comprising a project manager, a marketing manager, one experienced web developer and two marketing specialist was formed to carry on the Promotion project. The team has met at the workshop on the15/02/2021 to estimate the duration of the project activities and to identify the dependencies. The project schedule, the cost, the risk, the stakeholders and the management approach sections will be added in the next version of the document.
2. Introduction on Charity Marathon at Audley
The Hertfordshire Crisis Response Centre (HCRC) is an established organisation supporting people in the Hertfordshire in times of crisis. The covid-19 pandemic is no exception. One of the fund raising projects organised by HCRC is to organise a Charity Marathon at Audley End House to support vulnerable population in Hertfordshire during and after the covid-19 crisis. The marathon will start and finish at the iconic Audley End House with the course taking participants around the surrounding rural roads. This document focus is on carrying out the marketing of the charity marathon. It forms a sub-project required by the total event. Other projects such as organising the event and managing the event on the day are described as separate projects elsewhere.
3. Business Objectives
The HCRC carries out many events to raise funds. Its main objectives are as follows:
1) Raise funds for crisis relief (e.g. floods, fires, pandemics) of at least £500,000 each year.
2) Increase awareness of HCSC and the work that it does from 20% to 25% after two years.
3) Carry out its fund raising activities in an environmentally and ethically responsible manner.
This project will meet these objectives by raising funds by charging competitors entry fees, collecting donations from spectators on the day, obtaining sponsorship from major companies and charging for advertising during the event. It will increase awareness of the event by describing what HCRC does during the radio slots and on the internet pages which advertise the event. Great care will be taken with the event to reduce transport costs and ensure that the event has appropriate support services to ensure the safety of competitors and spectators and to minimise the disturbance to local people and businesses. Due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic a specific safety measures will be put place ( see https://www.hertshalf.com/covid-19-safety-measures/ ) and those will be reviewed closer to the event.
4. Project Objectives
These objectives apply just to the marketing of the event.
1) Raise £10,000 in competitors’ entrance fees.
2) To recruit 5 male and 5 female elite runners for the event.
3) To attract 3,000 spectators for the event (to be reviewed closer to the event due to covid restrictions.
4) To obtain sponsorship and advertising to raise £20,000.
5) To use newspapers, radio and the internet to publicise the event and HCRC.
5. Limits and Exclusions
These are situations that restrict the way you can complete a project.
• The event can only be held on a Sunday because other days would cause too much disruption.
For safety reasons, the event can only have 3,000 entrants.
The route must be agreed with the Local Council and Police
6. Assumptions for Charity Marathon at Audley
Assumptions are project aspects that you assume will be met so that you can achieve the project objectives. Whereas constraints are restrictions the way the project can be carried out, assumptions are situations that need to happen in order for you to meet the project’s objectives.
• The police will give permission for the event to be run.
• The council will give permission for areas to be used for parking
• St. John’s Ambulance will be prepared to attend the event.
• There will be no competing event occurring in the area on the day chosen.
7. Project Scope for Charity Marathon at Audley
The organisation of the Charity event will proceed through the implementation of two sub-projects:
1) Promotion Project and
2) Preparation & Running of the Event.
The scope of the Promotion (marketing) of the Charity Event is restricted to the activities covering:
1) Recruiting competitors and elite runners.
The activities that will be included for this will be to locate the elite runners to sign them to compete in the event. The recruitment of competitors will involve developing a website to advertise the event and allow competitors to register online and to provide facilities on-line for the competitors’ friends and family to sponsor them through, for example, www.justgiving.com.
2) Recruiting sponsors and advertisers.
The activities that will be included for this will be to determine the sponsors and advertisers most likely to want to be involved in this event and to contact these and agree their involvement.
3) Publicising the event.
As well as using the Internet to publicise the event, local newspapers and radio will be used to raise awareness for both competitors and spectators. Posters and flyers will also be produced and distributed throughout the local area. This will require two stages first there would be general publicity about the date of the event and approximate route and second more detailed publicity giving the exact route and spectator points along with the names of the elite runners.
Preparation & running of the event includes the following work items :
• Planning Security and Safety
• Planning the race
• Managing race on the day
• Managing finances.
8. Project feasibility
The entry fee will be set at £10 so to achieve the £10,000 will require that 1000 competitors register. Given that the London Marathon 2020 had a maximum of 45,000 and many would-be entrants not being able to secure a place, this would appear to be a very achievable target. In previous marathons of this scale the use of elite runners hasn’t been attempted so this area is unknown. A matching amount of money plus 50% is expected to be raised from the sponsors, and advertisers respectively, as it is the case with other similar events. However, for a good cause such as this and offering appearance money of £250 and prize money of £1,000 for the winning lady and man, it is felt that recruiting the ten people is achievable. Even if we fall short of this number and, say, only manage to recruit three men and three ladies this should not have a significant impact on the number of spectators attending or on the radio and press coverage that is given. Additional promotional expenses are estimated at £12,500. These will be calculated in more details in the Cost section of this document.
The weather is the main concern with regard to the number of spectators that will attend and that is something that can’t be controlled. However, the event is being held early in June when the temperature should be fairly mild and the route will pass by several public houses and many of these will have marquees to provide shelter from the rain. This will mitigate the effect of poor weather to some extent but spectator numbers could be considerably lower than expected if poor weather is forecast.
In the past, we have always had good support from sponsors and advertisers. The nature of the charity means they are always very supportive. The use of elite runners and the increased use of press and radio coverage should ensure that our target is achieved.
This financial summary has not been covered in detail as the costs associated with preparing the event and running it on the day have not been analysed thoroughly. Similarly, the income from street collections on the day or sponsor money collected by competitors has also not been analysed. However, a guideline estimate has been given as £2 per spectator and £25 per competitor respectively. The expected income and expenditure for the promotion, preparing and running of the event are given in the tables below. These figures should allow for the total amount of £20,000 raised from the event.
Table 1 Expected surplus from the Promotion Event
Promotion
Income
Competitors’ entry fees £10,000
Event Sponsors £10,000
Event Advertisers £5,000
Total £25,000
Expenditure
Elite Runners £4,500
Promotional Expenses £12,500
Total £17,000
Surplus £8,000
Table 2 Expected surplus from the Running Event
Preparing and Running Event
Income
Collections from spectators £6,000
Competitor Sponsors £25,000
Total £31,000
Expenditure
Event £19,000
Surplus £12,000
9. Organisational Structure
The Hertfordshire Crisis Support Centre (HCSC) is organised as shown in the following diagram:
Their projects use a matrix structure where the project manager uses staff from the different departments as required but the staff report administratively to their departmental manager. The reporting problems of matrix management are not seen within the organisation as this is the normal way of working. This is a particularly appropriate structure because staff members are not usually full time or involved for any length of time on any particular project. The reporting structure for the promotion project is shown in this diagram:
9.1. Project team members’ responsibilities
The responsibilities of each member on this project are shown in the table below. The rates are shown either as hourly rates (/Hr) for the staff allocated to work on the project activities, or as annual salary (/pa) for the staff employed to work throughout the duration of the project.
Role Responsibility Person.Code Rate
Project Manager Responsible for allocating work to the team members, monitoring and controlling the work on all work packages. Accountable for all aspects of the project to the Fund Raising Director. PM £40,0000/pa
Marketing Manager Responsible for the content of the marketing material for sponsors and providing advice on suitable sponsors and media MM £50/Hr
Marketing Specialist Will contact sponsors and elite runners, prepare suitable contracts and liaise to ensure payment is received. Will also source other competitors via mailshots and produce the final list of all runners. MS1 £20/Hr
Marketing Specialist Will prepare publicity material, arrange media slots and arrange distribution of publicity material such as posters and flyers. MS2 £20/Hr
Developer Will be responsible for developing and launching the website. WD £30/Hr
Accountant To provide bookkeeping function (paid after the event). AC £50/Hr
10. Work Breakdown Structure
The following diagram shows the top level of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the Charity Marathon.
11. Estimates of durations and dependencies
The duration of the Promotion project (WBS.1) activities and the mutual dependences have been estimated at the workshop which took place on the 15/02/2021:
1) Preparation of marketing materials (2 days) will includes contracts for all sponsors and elite runners which will need to be signed before they can be confirmed.
2) Sponsors need to be sourced (1 day) before they can be contacted and confirmed (3 days).
3) Same for the elite runners.
4) Other marathon runners will be sourced either via website registration, or via direct advertising (mailshots).
5) Once the sponsors and the elite runners are confirmed, the work can start on the following activities:
a. Sourcing of participants for direct advertising via mailshots (2 days)
b. Web site development (5 days for prepration of web pages, 1 day for arranging the hosting and 1 day for launching the website).
c. Production of posters (3 days) and arrangement of radio slots (2 days) for promoting the event.
6) Running magazines will need to be researched (1 day) in order to prepare suitable adverts (2 days) and place the adverts in the magazines (1 day).
7) Mailshots will be sent (2 days) as soon as the recepients are identified.
8) Entries from the website, adverts and mailshots are collated after 5, 10 and 10 days respectivelly to determine the final list of the marathon participants (3 days).
In the planning phase of the project, the dependencies above will be captured in a precedence table which will serve as a basis for the network graph and Gantt chart of the project (Gardiner, 2005). The costing of the project will be based on the allocation of resources specified in the table in section 9.1
12. References
Gardiner, P. D. (2005). Project management: A strategic planning approach. Macmillan International Higher Education.
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