Orca Running

Sponsorship

We would rather work with people we would run with

Seventeen road races a year across Washington, 20,000 runners through them, and 90,000 people who open our email. If a brand belongs in front of them, we should talk.

What we run

We have been putting on road races in Washington since 2014. Seventeen a year now — halfs, 10Ks and 5Ks, a 15K and a 30K up at Birch Bay near the Canadian border, timed 3-to-18-hour trail loops at Lincoln Park, a couple where people turn up in costume, and one in December where everyone runs Green Lake in the dark for a light-up medal and a cookie.

They are not enormous races and we are not trying to make them enormous. They are the ones people come back to every year, bring a friend to, and drive across the state for.

The numbers

Who you would be reaching

Where How many
Runners across our races each year 20,000
Email list 90,000
Instagram 12,600
Orca Run Club, on Strava 1,300
Races a year 17

The Orca Run Club runs free every Tuesday evening, year round, rotating between East Lake Sammamish, Lincoln Park and Gene Coulon. There is a Facebook community too. This is a crowd we are in front of every week, not only on race mornings.

What we can do

We would rather build something around what a sponsor is actually trying to do than hand over a tier sheet. The things we do most often:

  • Logos where runners look — race pages, the start and finish arch, bibs, shirts and the sponsor row at the bottom of every race page.
  • Product in people’s hands — we pour GU and Tailwind at nearly every race, and 20,000 runners a year is a lot of hands to put something new into.
  • A tent at the finish — where runners are standing around eating, in a good mood, for an hour.
  • Packet pick-up — we host ours at retail partners, most often REI Bellevue and REI Seattle, on a weekday evening before the race.
  • The newsletter — The Running Joke goes out weekly to 90,000 people, and they read it.
  • Social and the run club — 12,600 on Instagram, and the Orca Run Club out every Tuesday evening with 1,300 on its Strava. A sponsor can turn up to one of those.
  • Entries — for a team, for staff, for a giveaway.

Who we work with

Brooks is the title sponsor of the Orca Half and Lake Sammamish. REI presents both and hosts our packet pick-ups. GU and Tailwind are at nearly every race. Partners Crackers, Orangetheory, Cure Hydration, Postdoc Brewing and Iron Horse Brewery have all sponsored races with us.

Every Orca race runs alongside a non-profit partner and gives a share of each entry fee, and we have been carbon neutral since 2022. Sponsors who care about that tend to fit well here.

Let's talk

Tell us what you sell, who you are trying to reach and roughly what you have to spend, and we will come back with something specific rather than a brochure.