Frequently Asked Questions

HealthRally is a new way for friends and family motivate one another to reach important goals with exciting rewards.

There are two ways to use HealthRally:

• Motivate a friend - Inspire your friend, family member, or anyone else to reach a goal by organizing a rally of supporters and choosing a reward that really inspires them!


• Motivate me - Got a tough goal you want to achieve? Build your own team of rally supporters, a reward that will motivate you, and get inspired each day by your team!

You and your friends and family. Every rally has a leader and supporters.

• Leader - person achieving a goal like losing weight, running a race, quitting smoking


• Supporters - friends and family providing inspiration & motivation


• Organizer - person who organizes a rally for someone else

HealthRally works because...

•    Your friends and family are your most powerful support network


•    Rewards increase motivation (and they are fun to celebrate with!)

HealthRally ties together advances in behavioral economics, which shows that money triples one's chance of reaching a health goal, with social networking health science, which has shown that engaging close friends and family increases achievement rates. In practice, when these principles are woven together in a fun and friendly way, it dramatically increases peer support and success rates. The results we are seeing are amazing!

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, dieters who had a financial incentive to lose weight were nearly five times as likely to meet their goal than those who had no potential for financial reward. On average, participants who received financial rewards lost more than 13 pounds in 16 weeks, compared to an average loss of only 3.9 pounds in the control group. "Incentive approaches based on behavioral economic concepts appear to be highly effective in inducing initial weight loss," the researchers wrote. Moreover, incentives pledged one's friends and family represent an additional boost of peer support and motivation to reach a goal and stay with it.

Financial incentives can also inspire people to quit smoking. In a separate study, the same team of University of Pennsylvania researchers found that smokers who were given a cash reward were three times more likely to kick the habit than those who only received educational information.

Research also shows that when you publicly announce your goal to even a few people, you’re more likely to follow through on your commitment.

RallyCoach is our proprietary artificial intelligence engine that monitors the motivational momentum of each rally. RallyCoach nudges users to share their experiences and to motivate their friend with money. RallyCoach also reminds users of significant events forthcoming in a rally. RallyCoach rocks!

You start a HealthRally by inviting your close friends and family into a private social network, where you share your goal and they cheer you on with inspiring notes. They even have the chance to motivate you with monetary rewards that you get if you reach your goal.

Leader

      1. Set a goal with an end date

      2. Choose a reward that will really motivate you

      3. Select supporters to join your rally

      4. Update supporters on progress in the rally

      5. Declare success when the goal is reached, collect rewards

      6. Enjoy a healthier life

HealthRally is a new way for friends and family to support and motivate each other to lose weight, quit smoking or achieve other health-related goals.

Organizer

      1. Choose a goal with a date that they should reach it by

      2. Select an amazing reward for them

      3. Invite lots of friends and family to join you in inspiring them

      4. Send Invitations and Start the Rally

      5. Motivate them with cash, get other supporters motivate with money too

      6. Transfer the rally to the leader (this invites the leader to join)

      7. Support your friend as a supporter and motivate with more cash

      8. Confirm goal is reached at the end of the rally

Leader

      1. Join the Rally your friend or family organized for you!

      2. Thank the organizer and your friends

      3. Update your supporters on your progress on private rally activity feed

      4. Confirm your goal is reached and collect your reward

      5. Enjoy a healthier life

Supporter

      1. Join your friend's rally!

      2. Motivate them with money

      3. Send inspirational notes

      4. Respond to requests for support

      5. Hold leader accountable on end date

You can use either Facebook or your email address to sign in to HealthRally. We recommend you sign in with Facebook, because it's faster and easier.

Most importantly, you will be able to Start a Rally and be able to choose your supporters from your Facebook friends. We never post anything to Facebook, we only use it to help you set up and run your Rally more easily.

If you sign in via email, HealthRally will send you an email asking you to confirm your email address prior to being able to participate in a rally. You can change your password in 'Your Account' settings.

Click on "Account' in the top navigation bar. You can set or change your first name, last name, primary email address, photo, password, gender, and overall email settings.

If you know your goal and how you plan to reach it then start a rally to motivate yourself. Once you have a plan of action, sign up for a HealthRally to make sure you will achieve your goal!

If you know your goal and how to plan to reach it then start a rally to motivate yourself. Once you have a plan of action, sign up for a HealthRally to make sure you will achieve your goal!

HealthRally lets you choose how you want to reach your goal. Leaders do everything from walking to yoga to get in shape and follow all types of diets like Atkins, Weight Watchers, South Beach – you name it.

On the last day of the rally the leader must declare success or forfeit the rally, or the rally will be automatically forfeited at 11:59.59pm HealthRally Official Time. If Success is declared, supporters are sent a note asking them to confirm with 7 days that the leader reached the goal (we send supporters 2 reminders too)

If the leader doesn't reach the goal then the leader should forfeit the rally.

If the leader neither declares success or forfeits, the HealthRally will automatically forfeit the rally at 11:59.59 HealthRally Official Time.

HealthRally Official Time is the time at HealthRally headquarters in San Francisco, California in the United States.

No. We don't allow people to modify their goal once supporters have been invited. It would get too confusing for supporters who have already signed up and pledged money to track every time someone would like to change their goal. If you need to change your goal, let your supporters know and ask them to join a new HealthRally.

If you don't reach your goal by the end date, then you should forfeit your rally. If you don't forfeit your rally or declare success, HealthRally is automatically forfeit your rally and return supporters pledges to their accounts at 11:59.59pm HealthRally Official Time.

Sorry, we sent you three reminder emails plus you have your support team to remind you that your rally was about to end and that you should declare success. The money pledge by your supporters has been returned to their accounts.

You reached the end date and didn't declare success before 11:59.59pm HealthRally Official Time on your end date.

Not at this point. We will be building this feature soon.

We hold the rally open for the entire period of time the rally is scheduled to run. On the end date at 11:59.59pm HealthRally Official Time, the rally will autoforfeit and rewards will be returned to supporters accounts.

Go the "Account" and click on the "Your Funds" tab. This will give you the options of how you can receive your rewards.

Our users consistently tell us that HealthRally helps them achieve their goals and we're proud to play a small role in that success. At HealthRally, we strive to provide an excellent service at a low cost. That's why we only charge 7% on pledges, plus credit card transaction fees up to 3%. Depending on the method by which you would like your rewards delivered, such as gift cards versus VanillaVisa, there may be ways to reduce this percentage. All fees are accessed when money is taken out of HealthRally. This is a similar rate to what non-profits charge for fundraising for charity events. These fees help us provide secure hosting of the website so you can take comfort in leaving your credit card details, processing pledges securely, providing customer support and continuously updating features to ensure the most powerful and motivating experience possible.

Click on the show team link in the right hand column. That will have the people who have joined the rally. People who have not joined will still be in the invite supporters menu. Invited supporters will receive two invitation reminders during the 5 days after the first invite.

Yes. After you start your rally, click Invite New Supporters. Add people either manually or via the Facebook interface. Once you click "Invite New Supporters" an invite will be sent to them. They will have the option to sign in with Facebook or their email address when they join your rally.

Yes. Just re-enter their information in the Invite Supporters pop-up.

If you publicly shared the URL to your HealthRally, for example on your Wall in Facebook or in your news feed, other people will be able to read be able to gain access to your rally. If you are uncomfortable with a person who has shown up, please email support@healthrally.com with the phrase "please block" and we will block them from your Rally. In future versions of the product, only people you have invited will be able to have access. This is on our development list.

Yes. A HealthRally can be forfeited at any time by the leader. Before you forfeit your rally, we highly recommend you wait a day or a week. You've made it this far. Just starting a rally and bringing your friends together is a big task, especially if they have pledged support money toward a reward for you. If you are near your goal, you may want to talk it over with them. Share your frustrations with your team; this is what they are there for. If you do forfeit your rally, all pledged rewards will go back to the supporters, minus our processing fee.

No, you can't. That's why leaders don't have access to the motivate with money function. Warning! Credit card rules forbid leaders from paying themselves. Any pledges made by a leader to themselves will cause us to cancel your HealthRally, making it impossible to receive or remove funds. This is not a HealthRally-specific policy — this type of transaction is considered an attempt to create a "cash advance" and is forbidden by all credit card companies. Please note that we may not detect this action until your HealthRally ends and you attempt to collect rewards. While the rally will appear to succeed on HealthRally, we will later suspend any accounts controlled by the leader, making it impossible to receive/remove funds.

Yes, but we don't recommend it. Communication is the most critical aspect to supporting your friend. If the emails are getting to be too much for you we recommend you set up a separate folder to check regularly. You can also change your email preferences for each rally by clicking on the Rally Email Preferences link which will give you several options including daily and weekly digests or you can change your email settings for all of your rallies in your account settings. Please note that changing your email settings in your account will override all your rally specific email preferences.

We are constantly expanding the options available to you. Rewards can be social, like a spa day with friends -- personal, like an iPad2 or running shoes -- charity-focused, with a donation to your favorite non-profit -- flexible. In the case that our cash rewards card; gift cards, and e-certificates aren't available, we'll be fulfilling via check and you can use the money to go toward the reward you .