UK’s 25 largest fundraising events raised over £74m in 2020
Melanie May | 3 August 2021 | News
The UK’s 25 largest fundraising events raised more than £74m for charities in 2020 – just over half as much as the previous year’s Top 25 according to massive’s latest figures.
Compiled annually since 2013, massive’s latest Top 25 reveals that lockdown saw 19 out of 25 events in 2019’s Top 25 list unable to go ahead as planned, although most were able to continue in a virtual form. Existing virtual events also saw rapid growth. As a result, this year’s Top 25 achieved 51% of last year’s income.
The list was topped by Movember’s Grow for Mo event, which raised £11.5m. A second event, Move for Mo, raised £4.15m, meaning the charity grew its combined income by 41% compared to last year.
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Second on the list was the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning, raising £10m, followed by Race for Life with £6m.
Macmillan, with five events in the Top 25 worth over £20m, made the most money from mass participation events last year, according to the report, followed by Movember and Cancer Research UK.
Fast growers were:
• Game Heroes from Macmillan – up 300% at £920,000
• My Poppy Run from Royal British legion – up 300% at £1.13m
• Cycle 300 from CRUK – up 239% at £3.35m
John Tasker, a partner at massive, commented:
“This year we saw charities successfully make the change from physical mass participation events to virtual ones. The sector responded incredibly effectively to the challenges of lockdown.
“On average, when a physical event went virtual they raised 40% of what they would normally.
“We also saw charities really amplify the power of their existing virtual events, which saw huge growth.
“We’re expecting mass participation events will be back in force next year, but we don’t expect things to go back to how they were. Charities have learned a lot from what’s happened in the last 18 months, and we expect to see a lot more hybrid events, combining physical and virtual, for the best of both worlds.”
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.