How do you elevate £300,000 to your charity’s trigger with a small group and a restricted price range? In the present day, you’ll discover out!
We talked with Georgia Akers, Head of Occasions at Spinal Analysis, about precisely how the charity plans, promotes, and raises a heap of cash in direction of its mission within the London Marathon utilizing JustGiving.
And we get particular. Georgia shares…
- How she recruits dependable and motivated fundraisers from day one
- Retains the hype going during race day
- The game-changer that raised an additional £100,000 and halved their dropout fee!
As you’ll see, it’s about getting in entrance of the suitable individuals, discovering the technique that works for you, and taking advantage of alternatives to realize assist.
Let’s soar into it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- The right way to establish your potential for achievement
- Setting the suitable targets
- Recruiting the perfect supporters
- The optimum London Marathon fundraising timeline
- The technique that raised an additional £100,000
- Digital fundraising instruments for achievement
- The JustGiving London Marathon Fundraising Hub
Small charity…big outcomes
Spinal Analysis is the UK’s main charity funding the invention and growth of efficient therapies for continual spinal twine damage.
With work like that, you would possibly assume the charity has a group of 100+ individuals. However they’re smashing it with only a small however devoted group of solely 15 individuals, and their London Marathon group solely two: Georgia and one assistant!
And regardless of their modest group measurement, the charity group of 184 London Marathon runners mixed to lift £300,000 on JustGiving alone in 2024.
The right way to establish occasion potential, then check and scale
Success in London Marathon depends on cautious effort, and ongoing stewardship. How does Georgia inform if it’ll have a optimistic ROI?
“I have a look at the prevailing demand from runners, think about the cost-per-runner, and assess the fundraising potential of the occasion to see if it’s price buying charity locations.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
From there, she assesses if the worth’s price the fee. “If I feel it’s price it, I’ll buy a small variety of charity locations to check the demand, then slowly improve.”
TOP TIP
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Setting the suitable targets
Setting targets comes right down to your charity’s particular targets. For Spinal Analysis, the principle aim in 2024 was constructing model consciousness while gaining new supporters.
“We frequently discover that, as a small charity, individuals haven’t heard of us except they’ve been instantly affected by spinal twine damage. This occasion offers us the chance to get in entrance of people that don’t find out about us.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
The charity additionally leverages London Marathon to construct even stronger relationships with their current group, while elevating as a lot cash as potential.
The right way to recruit new and current supporters
The charity has an ongoing listing of people that have expressed curiosity within the subsequent yr’s occasion, which they faucet into when their London Marathon locations are confirmed.
For additional recruitment, they cut up their outreach into chilly and heat audiences. Spinal Analysis entice chilly audiences (reaching new individuals not conversant in the charity) with Fb adverts, and interact heat audiences (their current group or individuals who find out about them) by natural social posts and e-mail.
“The demand is there; you simply have to determine how you can get in entrance of the suitable audiences.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
Then, as quickly as persons are accepted into the group, they get a collection of assets through e-mail to welcome them and assist them begin fundraising:
- A immediate to arrange their JustGiving web page
- Marathon coaching plans
- Fundraising concepts and inspiration
- Reminders for upcoming milestones (extra on this later)
- Personalised assist
TOP TIP
For extra on how you can entice and activate new audiences, get our free JustGiving Information to London Marathon 2025.
The optimum fundraising timeline: how you can hold individuals motivated all yr lengthy
Georgia and her group take into consideration London Marathon all yr lengthy, because it’s their flagship fundraising occasion. And London Marathon wastes no time in releasing poll locations and charity locations. They typically do it the day after London Marathon, for the subsequent yr’s occasion!
Right here’s the fundraising timeline we’ve seen work time and time once more:
To maintain the joy going, Spinal Analysis connects with their group and helps their group join with one another by:
- A WhatsApp group for answering questions and sharing ongoing inspiration
- Displaying as much as cheer on their London Marathon runners in the course of the occasion
- Internet hosting a post-marathon meetup at a neighborhood pub to fulfill and congratulate their fundraisers after their monumental effort
The £100,000 fundraising difference-maker
Right here’s the one change to their fundraising technique that helped Spinal Analysis elevate an additional £100,000 in London Marathon 2024.
They mapped out a required milestone for his or her fundraisers, then had a backup plan if individuals didn’t meet it in time.
“We launched a required fundraising milestone – individuals wanted to hit 50% of their particular person fundraising goal by January to proceed on the group.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
This strategic milestone attracted extra dedicated runners from the beginning. On prime of that, their fundraiser waitlist allow them to to drag in new individuals if others needed to drop out.
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Spinal Analysis use JustGiving Marketing campaign Pages for all their London Marathon campaigns.
It’s simple for the charity and their fundraisers to verify in on their particular person or collective fundraising whole. Plus, everybody can see how they’re measuring up in opposition to others on the leaderboard – that little bit of pleasant competitors encourages individuals to lift extra!
One other time-saver is having JustGiving related to their Salesforce CRM through the JustGiving API, which reveals all of them their fundraisers’ information in a single place (together with how a lot they’ve raised on their JustGiving web page) – particularly useful for such a small group!
What are your London Marathon targets for 2025?
Spinal Analysis is in the course of their 2025 London Marathon marketing campaign and aiming to lift greater than ever subsequent yr.
“We’re growing our particular person fundraising targets this yr to push our supporters to lift greater than ever.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
Georgia says, “The cash raised will assist our mission by permitting us to proceed to fund cutting-edge analysis, advance scientific trials, and fund our PhD programme, which is coaching the subsequent era of specialists within the area of spinal twine damage.”
Spinal Analysis are heading towards their 2025 London Marathon fundraising targets by…
These good methods are serving to them get donations day-after-day. Our recommendation: adapt these methods to spice up your charity’s London Marathon marketing campaign too!
Try our 2025 London Marathon fundraising hub for much more assets that will help you plan, promote, and succeed within the largest fundraising occasion of the yr 👇
EVERYTHING YOU NEED
The JustGiving London Marathon 2025 Fundraising Hub
Get all the most recent London Marathon 2025 fundraising assets, incentives, and instruments to construct your charity a profitable marketing campaign.
