London Marathon runners raise £7 million online via Justgiving
Howard Lake | 26 May 2005 | News
Runners in the 2005 Flora London Marathon have now raised over £7 million online through online sponsorship service Justgiving.
Justgiving reports that 8,615 runners built a fundraising page for the event using their service. They generated nearly 200,000 online donations, with an average value of £36. Each active fundraising page raised an average of over £900.
By using the online system runners ensured that charities benefited from £1.3 million in automatically reclaimed Gift Aid. In addition, because most supporters donated online rather than pledged money, £5 million was banked by charities before the race, saving charities the costly and time-consuming process of chasing funds once the race was run.
Advertisement
The rise of online sponsorship has been dramatic. In 2001, just £20,000 was raised online by London Marathon runners using Justgiving. A year later that figure grew 10 fold, reaching £1.2 million in 2003 and £3.4 million in 2004.
Justgiving is the Flora London Marathon’s official partner for charity fundraising for the fourth year running. Each runner can quickly build a web page, personalise it with a photo and message and email it out to friends and family who then donate by credit or debit card. Justgiving processes donations electronically and automatically reclaims 28% Gift Aid.
Related posts
Oxfam achieves 77% Gift Aid reclaim using online sponsorship tool
Breast Cancer Campaign's wear it pink® raises £497,223 so far
Event fundraisers 'losing £195 million a year' by not using online sponsorship
National Literacy Trust raises £11,270 in eBay auction
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.