GuluWalk

If you haven't yet heard of the GuluWalk, then you're missing one of the most inspiring grassroots stories in fundraising and awareness building out there.

The GuluWalk was born when two Canadian men learned about one of the impacts that civil war in Uganda is having on a generation of children. Every night in rural war-torn northern Uganda, tens of thousands of children walk miles into urban centres, to sleep in relative safety in the streets and avoid abduction by the army to be used in the war. It's a heart-breaking story, and when Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward learned of it in 2005, they decided to do something about it. Embarking upon their own "Gulu Walk", they walked 12.5 km every night into downtown Toronto and slept in the streets, only to walk home again in the morning and attempt to go about their days.

Since that first month-long endeavour, the GuluWalk has grown into an international peace movement, with walks happening all over the world. In 2006 alone, they raised more than half a million dollars for the cause - with a paid staff of two. From a technical perspective, this remarkable feat of fundraising was made possible by the Artez Solution.

GuluWalk set a goal of getting 10,000 people to sign up and raise $100 each. Without the right software solution, that would have been an administrative nightmare. "Artez made it easy for us, in a very simple way, to put names and faces to everyone who was ready to walk for these courageous kids," says Adrian Bradbury, one of the founders of GuluWalk. And for Artez, it's stories like this that make it all worthwhile.

Gulu Walk was the 2007 ePhilathropy award winner for Best Special Event Registration and/or Membership Campaign.