Today is the last day to enter our survey and be eligible to win a free ebook or a $100 donation to the charity of your choice.

Whether you’re participating in an event already set up or would you like organize your own charity walk, run or other athletic event, fundraising is a big part of it. Even if you are planning a different type of fundraiser or don’t know where to start at all, we’d still like to hear your thoughts and opinions.

As I said, today’s the last day so don’t delay…

Click here to take this short survey now

Are you considering a run/walk event as a fundraiser? David Patt of the Association of Running Event Directors offers some food for thought:

If you want to add a fund-raising element to a race, be realistic. Only a small percentage of participants will be contributors or fund-raisers. You may be better off creating an event that has an exercise component but appeals specifically to your supporters. They are the ones who care about your cause, will contribute, and will raise funds from others.

Read the full blog post: What’s an athletic fund-raising event?

Many charity athletic events encourage participants to raise money on their own by pledges or some other means.  Some events, especially long distance or those including travel actually require a certain amount of funds raised for the charity.  Then there are those that are organizing their own events to benefit a cause.

Whether you’re participating in an event already set up or would you like organize your own charity walk, run or other athletic event, fundraising is a big part of it.

Charity Mile & Step by Step Fundraising are sponsoring a survey to find out your most pressing questions about fundraising. Ten randomly drawn entries will win a free ebook and one lucky entry will win a $100 donation to their charity of choice.  Entries must be completed by this Friday, March 28th to be eligible.

Click here to take this short survey now

Would you like organize a 5K, walk-a-thon, bowling tournament or other athletic fundraiser?

Charity Mile & Step by Step Fundraising are sponsoring a survey to find out your most pressing questions about planning these types of fundraisers. Ten randomly drawn entries will win a free ebook and one lucky entry will win a $100 donation to their charity of choice.

Click here to take this short survey now

Over the past year we’ve featured several extreme charity athletic events. I’m constantly amazed by the dedication of someone willing to walk or run so many miles. I’ve completed a 26.2 mile marathon and anything beyond that seems like an extreme event to me. I would have to be very motivated, and maybe a bit crazy, to commit to something longer than that.

You don’t just wake up one morning and say, “hey I think I’ll walk out of the house today and run 100 miles.” Nope. It takes a lot of training months in advance. You have to plan your workouts, stay on the plan and also do fundraising for your cause.

Plus many of these volunteers are doing this on their own, not part of an organized program. So they also have to plan for contingencies, like having a support team along the route, where to sleep if it’s multiple nights like most of these are, getting plenty to eat, and being safe along the way.

You really learn a lot about goal setting and goal achieving when doing any long distance event. But even more so for these kind of extreme events.

Here are a few of these amazing volunteer fundraisers / athletes:
Friends Complete 52-mile Walk Along the Thames River (England)
Australian Student Completes Second Long-Distance Walk for Charity this time walking 4,000 Kilometers
Woman Walks Nearly 400 Miles Across Ireland to benefit the Smile Train, a charity that provides surgery for children who suffer from cleft lip and palate.
Man Endures 896 Mile Run Through the Texas Heat to raise awareness of childhood obesity.

The first athletic event that I am definitely participating in this year is the CASA 5K. This event benefits Court Apointed Special Advocates (CASA) which provides volunteer representatives for children going through family court. It’s a great organization and this 5K gives me a chance to support them.

What other events would I like to do this year? After writing yesterday about the great aspects of half marathons, I am starting to convince myself to run another one! The last half marathon that I did was several years ago. My strategy was interval training, that is I walked 3 minutes and ran one (approximately). It worked pretty well for me. Read more… »

A few weeks back Amy Hunold-VanGundy of the Runner’s Lounge blog wrote Everyone Should Run A Half Marathon and co-blogger Tom Green posted a follow-up with some other great points.

Many people who join charity marathon programs really do want to support the cause but are somewhat nervous about doing a long distance event. Some of them are beginners, others see themselves as “slow runners” as Amy mentioned and others may have health concerns that make long distances iffy. If so the half-marathon, 13.1 miles, could be the perfect answer. Read more… »