The program is designed to be very simple and sustainable!

1. We ask for a goal of 12 walks per year (ideally once/month) in hopes that we are encouraging healthy activity all year long. If you fall a little bit short, no problem at all.
2. Each event should last about an hour and start with a brief 5-7 minute health talk on a topic of the leader’s choice.
3. We will provide a waiver and sign-in sheet for walkers to complete, and we’d like you to send that information to us after each walk by submitting a post-walk survey.

We pass along a startup fee to cover the cost of merchandise, liability insurance, and marketing support for your new chapter. Current startup pricing can be found in step 3 of the housekeeping items.

The startup fee will get you set up with WWAD membership and insurance for a full year, starting with the date of your 1st walk.

Annually, you’ll have the option to renew as a standard member (currently $250/year) or a Premier Partner with co-branding rights (currently $3,000/year). If the renewal cost is ever an issue for standard membership, we’ll find a way to help get it covered.

Never! Walks are free and typically open to the public.

YES! We don’t want money to stop you from getting people moving. Click here for current funding options.

All Walk with a Doc members are welcome to co-brand anything electronic (ie social media posts, website pages, etc.) and any paper materials 11”X17” or smaller (ie flyers, postcards). You are also welcome, and encouraged, to have separate materials (without the WWAD logo) at the walks to recognize your organization and any sponsors.

In order to co-brand merchandise with both the WWAD logo and your organization, we offer a Premier Partnership, which is an additional $3,000 sponsorship fee per year. This allows you to co-brand anything and everything (t-shirts, banners, etc). Click here for more information.

Once you complete the housekeeping items, we will get everything set up on our end fairly quickly. We’ll build your webpage, set up the liability insurance, and register you for the leader portal to access marketing materials and health topics. Merchandise will take 1-2 weeks to arrive (please allow 4-5 weeks for co-branded merchandise).

You’re welcome to start walking right away, but we recommend spending at least 4-6 weeks using our marketing materials to promote the 1st walk to patients and the community.

We have several “branches” of our program to allow different healthcare professionals to lead the walks. Feel free to mix and match different events throughout the year, depending on who is leading, but make sure people know who to expect as the leader at each event.

• Walk with a Doc events can be led by a medical professional with an advanced medical degree such as a Physician, Resident Physician, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, or someone with a doctorate degree in a healthcare field, such as DDS, PharmD, Psy.D, DPT, OTD, DPM, DC.
  
• Just Walk events can be led by other licensed healthcare providers, including a registered nurse, registered dietitian, medical social worker, respiratory therapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech & language pathologist, licensed mental health counselor, and athletic trainer. (Note that Just Walk is not available in Texas).
  
• Walk with a Future Doc events can be led by medical students under the supervision of a faculty member or licensed healthcare provider.

*If there is a licensed healthcare provider that wants to lead a walk but isn’t on this list, please email us their credentials and we’ll let you know if they’re eligible to give the health talk.

We recommend that groups aim to host their monthly walks with a consistent location throughout the year for a few reasons:

1. Programming: The nature of Walk with a Doc is to create ongoing programming that promotes behavior change, moves people along the physical activity spectrum, and builds relationships within the community. We’ve seen that an ongoing presence with a consistent schedule and location helps better facilitate that within a community.
   
2. Marketing: Consistent messaging (ie walking the 1st Saturday of every month at 9 AM at Central Park) will make your marketing efforts much easier. You can promote the program as a whole, rather than each event individually.
   
3. Insurance: We typically provide your chapter with liability insurance for one outdoor location and one inclement weather location.

If this is an issue, please let us know. We’re flexible and can work with you to find a solution that fits your needs.

We would love to help you start Walk chapters in multiple communities! Please email contact@walkwithadoc.org and we’ll draft a master agreement for your organization. Each time a new community wants to get started, they’ll simply complete a short application and choose which merchandise package they’d like to buy. We’ll get them set up with marketing materials, a website, merchandise, and liability insurance for their walk location.

Yes! The more the merrier. Your WWAD chapter will be tied to the walk location that you choose and you’re welcome to have as many partners involved as you’d like.

We’ve found that groups have more success when they directly reach out to local healthcare providers, clinics, hospitals, medical societies, etc. Therefore, we ask that you initiate the conversation, and we have sharing tools to make it easy. Once you find a healthcare provider who’s interested, we’re happy to connect with them to answer questions and go over details.

You and/or your organization will be listed as an additional insured on our general liability policy and you’ll receive a certificate of insurance via email (click here for a sample). In the event of an accident/incident at a WWAD event, you will have coverage for $1,000,000 per occurrence, $3,000,000 aggregate + $5,000,000 umbrella. It covers all physicians, staff, volunteers, walkers, etc. at the walks and you’re welcome to walk as often as you’d like in both the outdoor and inclement weather locations that you designate on your application. Participants will also sign a waiver at the walk.

Our team puts together “one-pagers” on various health topics with suggested talking points. Leaders are welcome to choose a topic from our library, or they’re welcome to choose a topic of their own. Discussions are meant to be very simple and engaging (5-7 minutes, no PowerPoint slides needed!)

We’ll share “best practices” for spreading the word locally, including a comprehensive marketing guide, flyer templates, social media posts, and more turnkey resources.

We’ll also build a webpage that has all of your walk information on it, including your contact information and a link for participants to register.

Walk with a Doc is frequently featured in national news outlets and developing new national partnerships to help spread the word about local chapters.

Our team is available to brainstorm marketing ideas by phone or email anytime.

Of course! You’re welcome to order merchandise through our online store or send us an email. We can also work with you to custom-order WWAD merchandise that isn’t on our store.

If we have a national sponsor who wants to attend your walk, we will notify you ahead of time and you can “opt-out” if you don’t want them to come to your walk. If a local business reaches out to us and wants to sponsor/attend your walk, we will forward the information to you and let you decide if you want to pursue it or not.