New ScoreSide Beta for Endurance Athletes

My name is Ben Bakken and I’m the CEO and founder of ScoreSide. We have worked hard to build an amazing platform pairing passionate sports fans and the causes they care about, but I’ve had this use case that I’ve always wanted to try but has been on the back burner.

Endurance Events and ScoreSide

I am a semi-frequent participant in endurance charity events.  It’s a great way to combine my charitable giving urge with my wish to get into shape. I had this idea about how I could use ScoreSide to connect with donors supporting my events.

One of the things I’ve noticed almost every time I train for an event is that it’s really easy to be motivated on event day.  I think about all the people I’ll be riding or running with, the teammates with whom I’ve been training, and I think about all the people affected by the disease or condition for which I’m doing the event and all the money that has been donated.

Sustained motivation problem

My problem is that months earlier, in the cold, wet dark of a September morning which is supposed to start with an early morning ride, I’m not at all motivated.  In fact, I find it very easy to let a workout or two slide and then it’s a bunch of missed workouts and then my fundraising slides and it all just slides. My event day is then all the more difficult and why didn’t I just go out for that ride?!

ScoreSide means they give while you train

ScoreSide seemed like a great platform to help with this motivation problem.  What if I could get support during my training in a direct and tangible way and even put some financial pressure on myself as well.

ScoreSide is designed to allow fans to tie their donations directly to their favorite team’s performance on the court or field.  If I could be the team, each week of training could be a game and the training ahead of the event would be the season, then I could pull my workout data from Strava as game events. With that, then, I’ve got a great way to connect me and those donors sponsoring me for my event in a ScoreSide way.

Donors give each week I hit my goal, I give each week I don’t!

All I need to do is find supporters who want to help me and experience my training journey with me.

I set a weekly goal (pretty much any Strava metric will do) and anyone that wants to can join my campaign and automatically donate some set amount they choose each week I hit my goal.

On my side, I will donate every time I miss my goal. Of course, I need to choose a large enough amount that keeps me motivated ($100?  $250?  Maybe more if my laziness is a tougher foe than I realize) but my friends and family might choose $2.50 or $5.00 a week in support of my efforts.

With the ScoreSide app, joining my campaign takes just a couple of clicks and the rest happens automatically. It’s just as easy as a single one-time donation on my fundraising page and it will keep me motivated all summer. ScoreSide handles the rest.

In the end, I chose a goal of climbing 3600’ every week on my rides. My October 24th Day of the Tread ride includes two mountain climbs of several miles each totaling around 3600’ and that is a lot for me.

Take a look at the active campaign here: “Ben Bakken: Climbing Counts”

We’d like to send an immense amount of thanks to our friends at The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and their endurance event arm, Team Challenge.

Not only have the worked tirelessly to engage donors and fight for every one that suffers from Crohn’s and UC, but they have been fantastic partners during our beta testing. Thank you!

Want to find out more about the beta or are you curious about how it turns out? Contact us here