Team Fundraising for Bank of America Chicago Marathon

We are changing the referral program for 2026!

Our new referral program for 2026 will focus on creating Teams within the Mercy Home Heroes Team, while continuing to motivate you to encourage friends, family members, or coworkers to join you on this journey.

It will be a fun way to motivate each other towards your individual fundraising goals while also competing against other teams.

HOW IT WORKS

Step one is to create a team, which can be done any time on or before July 15.  See “Join or Create a Team” at the top of your fundraising account page. Choose a name for your team and invite others to join.  The first person on the team will be the default captain, but that can be changed.  A co-captain can also be added. If you need assistance with any of this, please let us know. 

Make sure that your team members are all registered before we sell out, and then that all those interested in joining your team have done so by July 15th. That is the Marathon’s deadline for roster changes.  On July 20th, each team with three or more members will be issued a fundraising credit equal to $100 for each team member (e.g. $300 for a team of 3, $1,000 for a team of 10, etc.).

Team captains will have the ability to share that credit evenly with each team member or use it to help any team members who may need an extra boost to reach their minimum.   

ABOUT TEAM FUNDRAISING

All Mercy Home Heroes are responsible for their own individual fundraising minimum commitment; however, Team fundraising can help.  While each team member works to raise funds, the team can also solicit donations for the team which can then be distributed to team members. This can be particularly helpful for families, friend groups, or coworkers who may be targeting many of the same donor prospects. 

The Team captain will then be responsible for distributing the team gifts to individual team members. All Team gifts must be distributed before the final fundraising deadline, we also recommend distributing gifts before the various fundraising milestone deadlines, so team members can also be eligible for those prizes. 

TEAM PRIZES

All team members are eligible to win prizes for reaching fundraising milestones or by going over their fundraising minimum before fundraising pages close.  Additionally, there will be awards given to top teams in the following categories:

• Top Team Overall Fundraising to the team whose members collectively raise the most among all eligible teams.
• Top Team Per Capita Fundraising to the team whose members have the highest average raised per team member.

All team members on each of these teams will receive a unique prize (to be announced).