2016 London Marathon breaks fundraising records
Melanie May | 16 September 2016 | News
The Virgin Money London Marathon raised £59.4 million for charity this year, setting a new world record for an annual single day charity fundraising event for the tenth year running.
This year’s race raised more than £5m more than 2015’s £54.1m total, taking the overall total raised since the inaugural 1981 race to more than £830m. Donations given through fundraising partner Virgin Money Giving also broke previous totals, at £26m including Gift Aid.
As well as setting a new record for money raised, the 2016 Marathon also saw a record number of finishers, with 39,140 crossing the finishing line, and Shannon Foudy, a police officer from Hemel Hempstead, becoming the millionth finisher in the history of the event.
The Marathon’s 2016 Charity of the Year, the NSPCC, raised more than £2m through its runners, which will go to support its Childline service.
Peter Wanless, CEO of the NSPCC, said:
“The money raised is going towards the project to transform our Childline service. We can currently only answer three out of four children who contact us and the money raised by our incredible marathon runners could pay for our trained volunteer counsellors to answer 500,000 children’s calls for help to Childline.”
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.