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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.
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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.
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.
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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.