Great British Duck Race aims to raise £500,000
Howard Lake | 4 July 2007 | News
On 2 September 2007 165,000 rubber ducks will be sent down 1km of the Thames to set a new World Record and raise over £500,000 for participating charities.
The Great British Duck Race organisers are encouraging the public to pay £2 to adopt a duck and add a £3 recommended donation to one of the many participating charities. The first duck over the finishing line will win its owner £10,000, and there are 30 other prizes on offer too.
The lead partner charities for the race are Down’s Syndrome Association, Sparks and The Waterways Trust.
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The Oswestry-based organisers are encouraging charities to register to take part, and businesses and schools to get involved and nominate a charity.
Once registered online, companies, schools and charities are given their own branded Great British Duck Race web page. It is then down to them to persuade clients, supporters, friends and family to visit that page and adopt a duck: “the more ducks your site sells, the more money your charity will make”.
The organisers say that they have worked very closely with the Environment Agency to ensure an event that involves placing tons of plastic into a river is environmentally friendly. As well as “making sure that every duck is taken out of the river and doesn’t cause a hazard to the wildlife or river environment”, the organisers say they are “working with several companies to try and ensure that everything used in this race and World Record attempt is fully recyclable.”
The World Record for a Duck Race is currently held by The Singapore Duck Race. In 2001, they sold and raced 123,500 ducks, raising $1,200,000 in the process.
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.