Cause Marketing for Epicenter

A great non-profit for Epicenter Athletic Club to partner with is the Austin Foundation. This organization “concentrates on building a child’s physical, social, and mental and emotional strength through constructive fitness training and instruction”. The Austin Foundation primarily serves youths in Seattle/King County and focuses their efforts on local schools.

An easy way for Epicenter to build an alliance with the Austin Foundation is to have their personal trainers and exercise instructors donate some of their time to helping the foundation teach their fitness classes. The Austin Foundation currently has only 4 trainers listed on their website, so having more of these volunteer trainers can help them reach more youths. Epicenter’s trainers and instructors can also collaborate with the Austin Foundation’s trainers to create better fitness classes.

A more creative way to collaborate and to get gym members involved as well is to have a weight loss competition where members sign up to donate money for every pound they lose. There could be a 2x or 3x penalty if the member actually ends up gaining weight so there is an incentive to lose weight. Another incentive is for each member to set a goal for total pounds lost and Epicenter will match their donation if they reach that goal. They should also utilize online donation software to help members ask their friends to donate per pound lost as well. They could start the competition in January when most members are trying to lose weight anyways and have it run for 2 months. Everyone that signs up could get a free meeting with a personal trainer to decide on their target goal and layout an easy weight loss plan for the competition.

This competition is a great way to motivate gym members to lose weight, introduce them to personal trainers (which could lead to more PT sessions bought), and raise awareness for the Austin Foundation and Epicenter. Epicenter is a local gym so partnering with a local non-profit centered on fitness is a natural choice. Classmate Amber also discussed partnering with the Austin Foundation for Running Evolution and made a great point about reaching mom’s through this partnership and how cause marketing is most effective with moms. This would apply to this situation as well.