Should You Hire a Fun Run Company or Do It Yourself?

Many schools are approached by a fun run company offering to run the whole event: kickoff, staff on the field, online pages, prizes and collection. Others organize the run themselves with volunteers. Neither choice is right for everyone. This page explains, without naming any company, how outside providers typically charge, why their "you keep X%" figures are hard to compare, what you get for the money, and how to model both options with your own numbers. Both paths are laid out step by step in our free fun run fundraising guide.

What a fun run company does

"Fun run company" covers a range of services. Before comparing prices, be clear which kind of help you are being offered.

Task	Full-service provider	Online platform only	Do it yourself
Kickoff assembly and daily school visits	Usually provided	Not provided	Staff and volunteers
Staff running the event on the day	Usually provided	Not provided	Volunteers
Online donation pages per student	Provided	Provided	A general online donation page or form
Shirts, prizes and incentives	Often included or deducted from proceeds	Not provided	You buy or get them donated
Lap tracking	Often provided	Sometimes, through the app	Lap cards and volunteer counters
Collection, reminders and receipts	Often handled online	Online gifts only	Your treasurer
Cash and checks	Varies; ask	Your treasurer	Your treasurer
Safety, permits, insurance	Varies; ask who is responsible	You	You

How fun run companies charge: the common models

Pricing differs by provider and is often negotiated. These are the models you are likely to see, sometimes in combination. For each, the question in the right column gets you a comparable number.

Model	How it works	Ask
Share of proceeds	The provider keeps a percentage of money raised	A percentage of what exactly: gross online gifts, all gifts including cash and checks, or the total after prizes and fees?
Per-participant or kit fee	A set amount per student, often covering a shirt, prizes or materials	Is it charged on enrollment, on participants, or only on students who raise money? Is there a minimum?
Flat program fee	One price for the service	What is included and what is extra? Is it due if the event is canceled for weather?
Platform or transaction fee	A charge on each online gift, separate from card processing	Is it a percentage, a fixed amount per gift, or both? Who pays it, the school or the donor?
Card processing	The payment fee on online gifts	Is it included in the provider's share or charged on top?
Donor-paid contributions	Checkout asks donors to add money for the platform	Is the add-on optional, how is it worded, and does any of it reach the school?
Prize program	Tiered prizes paid for out of proceeds	Is the prize cost inside the provider's share or deducted before the school's share is calculated?

Why "you keep X%" claims are hard to compare

Two providers can quote different "you keep" percentages for the same event and both be accurate, because each percentage has its own denominator and its own exclusions. Before comparing, ask each provider to answer the same five questions in writing:

1. Gross or net? Is the percentage of everything donated, or of what remains after prizes, shirts and fees?
2. Before or after prizes? If prizes come out first, a high "keep" figure can sit on a smaller base.
3. Card fees inside or outside? A figure "before processing" will be higher than what reaches your bank.
4. Which money counts? Does the base include cash and checks collected by your volunteers, or only online gifts? Do donor-paid add-ons inflate the gross?
5. Averages or your event? A company-wide average across many schools says little about a school of your size and community.

The only figure that settles the question is the dollars deposited in your account, minus anything you still paid for yourself, divided by participants. Ask each provider for a worked estimate of that number for your enrollment.

Run the numbers: provider share against doing it yourself

Use the profit calculator with your own enrollment and giving estimates. The "Outside provider's share" input (under fees) takes the provider's percentage of registration and collected donations; sponsorships and promises that are never paid are left out of it. Run it twice: once at 0 percent with all your own DIY costs entered, and once with the provider's share, removing any costs the provider would cover.

Illustrative, for a free-entry school lap run: 400 students, 60 percent collecting donations at $75 each ($18,000 in gifts), $1,500 in sponsorships, $6 per student in shirts and prizes, $800 in other fixed costs, and a 3 percent card fee on 80 percent of money collected online. To keep the arithmetic easy to follow, the collection rate is set to 100 percent (every promised dollar arrives); the calculator starts at an example 90 percent, so enter 100 to match this table. The provider shares below are inputs for comparison, not any company's actual fee.

Provider share	Provider receives	Net to the school	Net per student
0% (DIY)	$0	$15,868	$39.67
15%	$2,700	$13,168	$32.92
30%	$5,400	$10,468	$26.17
45%	$8,100	$7,768	$19.42

Working for the DIY row: $18,000 + $1,500 = $19,500 gross; minus $432 card fees (2.4 percent of $18,000) and $3,200 costs ($800 + $6 × 400) = $15,868. The other rows also keep the $3,200 in costs, which is only fair if the school still buys shirts and prizes. At a lower collection rate every row shrinks; when you ask a provider for its worked estimate, ask whether it is based on money promised or money actually collected.

Now the useful question: what share could a provider charge and still leave you even? If the provider covers all $3,200 of costs and raises the same $18,000, the break-even share is $3,200 ÷ $18,000 = 17.8 percent. If you believe the provider would lift giving by a fifth, to $21,600, break-even rises to about 31 percent: ($21,600 + $1,500 − $518 card fees − $15,868) ÷ $21,600. Any provider's claim that it raises more is the claim to test; ask for results from schools like yours, not averages. The how much fun runs raise page explains how to judge those figures, and the fun run results database collects documented results from public sources. It cannot settle the company question either: 11 of its 59 source records mention an outside fun run company or online giving platform in some role (running the event, hosting donations, or in the event name), and only 5 of the 59 say anything about costs or net proceeds.

What you get from a provider, and what DIY costs you

Consideration	With a provider	DIY
Volunteer hours	Fewer, especially in the campaign weeks	A chair, a money lead and run-day volunteers
Energy and programming	Trained staff, a polished kickoff and daily momentum	Depends on your PE teacher and committee
Online giving	Student pages ready to use	You set up a donation page and share links
Control of the message	Shared with the provider; check how prizes and goals are pitched to children	Fully yours
Prizes	Often a tiered catalog tied to dollars	Your choice; participation-based rewards are easy
Data	Families enter information on the provider's system	Stays with your group
Money flow	Funds may pass through the provider before reaching you	Straight to your account
Year two	Repeat the contract	Your templates and lists carry over

Questions to ask any fun run company in writing

1. What exactly is your fee, and on which money: online gifts, cash and checks, registrations, sponsorships?
2. Which costs come out before our share is calculated: prizes, shirts, card fees, platform fees?
3. Can you show a worked estimate of dollars deposited to us for a school of our enrollment?
4. Do donors see an optional add-on at checkout? What does it say, and who receives it?
5. When and how is money paid to us? Who holds it in the meantime?
6. Who issues donor receipts, and in whose name?
7. What student and family data do you collect, who can see it, how long do you keep it, and will you sign our district's data agreement?
8. How are prizes chosen? Can we limit them to participation and school-wide rewards?
9. Who is responsible for safety, supervision, insurance and any permits on the day? Can you provide a certificate of insurance?
10. What happens to fees if the event is canceled or postponed for weather?
11. Can we contact three schools of similar size that used you last year?
12. What is the contract length, and how do we end it?

Student data deserves its own conversation with your district. Federal rules let schools treat a student's name and participation in activities as directory information, subject to parents' opt-outs, but what a school shares with an outside company is a district decision.

When DIY fits, and when a provider might

Do it yourself when: you have a committed chair and a treasurer, a PE teacher who wants to lead the run, a school community comfortable with online giving, and a preference for participation-based rewards. DIY also fits community route runs and 5Ks, where registration fees and sponsors carry the money and a lap-based provider adds little. The step-by-step plan for organizing a fun run and the fun run budget guide cover everything a volunteer team needs. For a documented example, see Leggee Elementary PTA's do-it-yourself fun run, which raised a little over $25,000 in 2012 with expenses its treasurer put at $550.

Consider a provider when: volunteer capacity is genuinely thin, the school wants a high-energy multi-week program it cannot staff, or a first event needs a template. Even then, get the worked estimate in writing, run it through the fun run profit calculator, and compare it with a DIY plan built from your own budget, not with the provider's averages.