London Marathon Golden Bond places for more charities?
Howard Lake | 2 September 2004 | News
A campaign is underway to open up the lucrative Golden Bond place scheme at the London Marathon to more charities.
Philip Bush, a fundraiser at the Royal Blind Society, is frustrated at the difficulty of getting places for his charity’s runners at the London Marathon, one of the UK’s most lucrative fundraising events.
In particular he believes the Golden Bond scheme, which allows some charities to secure guaranteed places for runners year after year, is locking out too many charities, especially the smaller, less well-known ones. “Once they have their Golden Bonds, they can keep them for ever,” he points out, “which means that most of the 600 charities on the waiting list will never reach the top.”
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The alternative for charities without Golden Bonds is to enter the ballot. However, he thinks the chances it offers are pretty slim, just 11% in his charity’s experience over the last three years.
As a result, all those smaller charities who have supporters who would love to raise money for them are not able to give them the chance.
Bush is convinced that there must be a better and fairer way of allocating charity places. He wants to persuade the London Marathon organisers to give those charities on the waiting list list a few guaranteed places occasionally.
He acknowledges that this would mean
that those who are lucky enough to have got Golden Bonds would not have so many places in the future, but he argues that that is not unreasonable.
Bush is trying to gather support for his campaign. So if your charity feels strongly about this too you should contact him.
The issue has been discussed recently on the UK Fundraising Forum, where you can also show your support for the campaign.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.