Sports Fundraising Market Snapsh t 2018

Mass participation sports events provide an excellent opportunity for charities to recruit, engage and inspire people to fundraise for them. Whilst not all charities have their own mass participation events, the majority utilise third party events delivered by ‘commercial’ providers for fundraising activity. The Sports Fundraising Snapshot is our annual review of this market.

Which are the biggest events for sports fundraising? Working with our charity partners and ‘justcharity.org’ we have updated our estimate of the UK’s 25 most important mass participation sporting events for fundraising.

Collectively we estimate this group of events enabled charities to raise more than £135M last year.

No. Event Activity Amount 15 Cardiff Half Run NEW

1 Virgin Money Run HOLD16 London to Cycle Challenge Cycle NEW

2 Prudential RideLondon Cycle UP 17 Simplyhealth Run HOLD

3 Simplyhealth Run UP 18 Cotswold Way Challenge Trek NEW

4 Weekend Run UP 19 Tough Mudder North West MOB NEW

5 Royal Parks Run HOLD20 Vitality London 10000 Run HOLD

6 Simplyhealth Great Run Run UP 21 Belfast City Marathon Run HOLD

7 Marathon Festival Run DOWN22 Tough Mudder London West MOB UP

8 Simplyhealth Run UP 23 South Coast Challenge Trek HOLD

9 Thames Path Challenge Trek UP 24 Tough Mudder London South MOB UP

10 Asics Marathon Run HOLD25 Simplyhealth Great Stirling Run Run NEW

11 Bath Half Run HOLDFastest growing events: 12 London 2 Brighton Challenege Trek UP 3 events in particular have grown fundraising by a significant amount in 2017.

13 British HOLDBrighton The Grand London to Marathon Brighton Half Brighton 14 The Grand Run UP Weekend Marathon Challenge

www.wearemassive.co.uk L Twitter @wearemassive I www.linkedin.com/company/massive-ltd

Tel: 0207 683 0416 (South) Tel: 01904 425 690 (North) Email: [email protected] What trends are we seeing?

The market is growing Overall the amount raised from mass participation sports events increased last year for the fourth consecutive year.

Growth is uneven Whilst as a group the 25 biggest events saw income raised from them grow by more than 10%. 10 events out of 25 saw the amount charities raised from them static or falling. Across the market as a whole, the charities we work with reported a slowing in the rate of growth in income raised from all sports events in their portfolio.

Running still dominates In terms of activity, running still dominates the market accounting for 16 of the 25 (down from 18) but perhaps the most significant change is the rapid growth of ‘trek’ events doubling the number in the top 25 from 2 to 4 events which enabled charities to raise more than £7M last year.

Average value up, volume down Overall, we have seen a small decline in the number of people fundraising from mass participation sports events, whilst the average amount raised by fundraisers increased by 8% last year.

About us

As an agency that specialises in mass participation and fundraising, we’re passionate about understanding how the market is changing and spotting emerging trends to support our clients and harness the potential of mass participation events.

This report forms part of a wider research piece on the state of the UK sports fundraising market ‘The Sports Fundraising Monitor’. If you’d like to find out more about the report or how we can help you get more out of mass participation events get in touch [email protected]

*Our definition of mass participation sports events includes only events based around physical activities and those which are open to any charity, so excludes all events owned or associated with a single or small groups of charities e.g. Race for Life or Moonwalk. Fundraising data is based on figures supplied by our data partner justcharity.org who provide data from the UK’s major fundraising platforms. We have considered only UK fundraising for named events based only on pages that received their first donation and last donation between January 1st 2016 & April 1st 2018. No considera- tion has been made for commercial donations, shared income, grants or similar payments made by events, their organisers or sponsors to charity partners. Whilst we have made every effort to ensure data is as accurate as possible we make no guarantee on any of the figures included in this report.