How do you elevate £300,000 on your charity’s trigger with a small staff and a restricted price range? Right now, 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 all through race day
- The game-changer that raised an additional £100,000 and halved their dropout charge!
As you’ll see, it’s about getting in entrance of the suitable folks, discovering the technique that works for you, and benefiting from alternatives to realize assist.
Let’s leap into it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- How to identify your potential for success
- Setting the right objectives
- Recruiting the best supporters
- The optimum London Marathon fundraising timeline
- The strategy that raised an extra £100,000
- Digital fundraising tools for success
- 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 persistent spinal wire harm.
With work like that, you would possibly suppose the charity has a staff of 100+ folks. However they’re smashing it with only a small however devoted staff of solely 15 folks, and their London Marathon staff solely two: Georgia and one assistant!
And regardless of their modest staff measurement, the charity staff of 184 London Marathon runners mixed to boost £300,000 on JustGiving alone in 2024.
Learn how to establish occasion potential, then take a look at 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 present demand from runners, contemplate the cost-per-runner, and assess the fundraising potential of the occasion to see if it’s value buying charity locations.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
From there, she assesses if the worth’s value the price. “If I believe it’s value 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 all the way down to your charity’s particular objectives. For Spinal Analysis, the primary objective in 2024 was constructing model consciousness while gaining new supporters.
“We regularly discover that, as a small charity, folks haven’t heard of us until they’ve been instantly affected by spinal wire harm. 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 present neighborhood, while elevating as a lot cash as doable.
Learn how to recruit new and present supporters
The charity has an ongoing record of people that have expressed curiosity within the subsequent 12 months’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 folks not acquainted with the charity) with Fb advertisements, and have interaction heat audiences (their present neighborhood or individuals who find out about them) by way of natural social posts and e mail.
“The demand is there; you simply have to determine easy methods to get in entrance of the suitable audiences.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
Then, as quickly as individuals are accepted into the staff, 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 easy methods to entice and activate new audiences, get our free JustGiving Guide to London Marathon 2025.
The optimum fundraising timeline: easy methods to hold folks motivated all 12 months lengthy
Georgia and her staff take into consideration London Marathon all 12 months 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 12 months’s occasion!
Right here’s the fundraising timeline we’ve seen work time and time once more:
To maintain the thrill going, Spinal Analysis connects with their staff and helps their staff join with one another by way of:
- 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 satisfy 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 folks didn’t meet it in time.
“We launched a required fundraising milestone – folks wanted to hit 50% of their particular person fundraising goal by January to proceed on the staff.”
GEORGIA AKERS, HEAD OF EVENTS, SPINAL RESEARCH
This strategic milestone attracted extra dedicated runners from the beginning. On high of that, their fundraiser waitlist allow them to to drag in new folks if others needed to drop out.
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Spinal Analysis use JustGiving 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 complete. Plus, everybody can see how they’re measuring up towards others on the leaderboard – that little bit of pleasant competitors encourages folks to boost 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 staff!
What are your London Marathon objectives for 2025?
Spinal Analysis is in the course of their 2025 London Marathon marketing campaign and aiming to boost greater than ever subsequent 12 months.
“We’re rising our particular person fundraising targets this 12 months to push our supporters to boost 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 medical trials, and fund our PhD programme, which is coaching the subsequent era of specialists within the subject of spinal wire harm.”
Spinal Analysis are heading towards their 2025 London Marathon fundraising objectives by…
These sensible methods are serving to them get donations every single 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 12 months 👇
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 successful marketing campaign.
