Metropolitan Richmond Sports Backers Inc

Programs: During the past year, we have continued to drive growth and participant satisfaction of sports backers owned events by being a national leader in participatory sports event production. We collaborated with other sports organizations to grow the quality and size of significant sports tourism events hosted in the region. This year, 93,113 people participated in the 16 participatory events owned and produced by sports backers (including running, walking, and biking events). The economic benefit to the region has been tremendous, but equally important has been the transformational impact the organization has had on it's friends, neighbors, and communities, as they have reaped the benefits of becoming more active. Through our training teams, over 6,500 participants successfully completed their training goals last year and established regular physical activity routines. To build on the momentum of motivating individuals to adopt a healthier and more active lifestyle, sports backers launched active rva, a region-wide initiative to motivate area residents, businesses and local governments to make physical activity a personal and regional priority. Sports backers' ambitious vision is to transform greater richmond into the most physically active community in the nation by leading the area in embracing and celebrating an active lifestyle.

as part of an active living initiative, sports backers continues to grow a bike and pedestrian advocacy program, which is a collaborative and regional effort to support bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly policies, programs, and infrastructure projects. Sports backers also maintains a corporate wellness recognition program, an annual fitness scorecard, as well as targeted outreach to support physical activity programming in underserved neighborhoods. Throughout the year we built awareness of the value of being physically active through extensive marketing, public relations efforts, and communication tools.

we give back to area youth by providing college scholarships to recognize and reward top high school seniors for their academic and athletic performance. We awarded $65,000 to 20 scholar-athletes from around the region. Additionally, our youth run/walk program, kids run rva, encourages youth to lead an active lifestyle. More than 12,000 students participated in the program.