Giving to the 30 Biggest Athletic Charity Events Dropped Nearly 7% in 2017

The nation’s biggest walkathons, bike-athons, and other athletic fundraising events continued a five-year trend of declining revenue in 2017, according to a new study released Thursday.

The top 30 events raised nearly $1.5 billion last year, down almost 7 percent from 2016. Twenty of the events suffered declines in revenue.

The annual rankings by the Peer- to-Peer Professional Forum, however, showed that some organizations are putting more focus on efficiency: Many are decreasing the number of events they hold and are raising more money per participant. In the events studied, participants typically raise money from friends, relatives, co-workers, and others, often with significant logistical help from the charities they support.

In addition, some nonprofits are diversifying their efforts; rather than relying on one signature event, they are also creating smaller efforts, taking what David Hessekiel, president of the forum, calls a “portfolio” approach.

The changes are in response to several factors: a feeling that some of the events have grown stale, the difficulties some charities have in retaining participants from year to year, and increasing competition for people’s support and attention. (Twelve years ago, when Hessekiel’s group began collecting data on fundraising events, he notes, “There was no such thing as binge-watching.”)

“This continues to be a period in which all peer-to-peer programs are forced to adapt,” says Hessekiel. “The healthiest programs are doing things in a couple of different ways.”

No. 1 Makes Adjustments

For instance, the American Cancer Society, which holds the No. 1 spot in the rankings for its Relay for Life walkathon, raised $230 million in 2017, down nearly 18 percent from 2016. But behind that figure, Hessekiel says, is new fundraising efficiency: The organization ran 930 fewer events last year than it had in 2016, saving money on producing the events, but saw the average amount each participant raised jump more than 11 percent, to $115.

“They have adjusted the model,” Hessekiel says. “They’ve said, ‘We have to think more about what people in this race are actually raising.”

For the past two years, the charity has also run a campaign called Real Men Wear Pink, in which men are asked to wear one pink item every day in October and raise at least $2,500 each. The campaign is catching on fast, raising $5.5 million in 2016 and nearly $7 million last year. “They play up to the competitive spirit many men have,” Hessekiel says.

A ‘Dirty Little Secret’

The most successful fundraising events in the top 30, he says, are finding new audiences of supporters, finding new activities or new twists on old events, developing new alliances, and becoming more attuned to the need to raise money rather than just awareness of their cause.

That last part represents a cultural shift, Hessekiel says.

“The dirty little secret of this field is that if you asked participants at an event how much money they’ve raised, you would find that only one in every three was actually raising money,” he says. “The feeling was that it was somewhat gauche to push people to fundraise. This was a community event. But you can’t really be satisfied with such low participation figures for fundraising.”

He adds, “Saying that one of our primary goals is to raise awareness has been an easy thing to say that has covered up some programs that could have been tighter in terms of their fundraising goals.”

How Events Performed

Some events in the top 30 continued to show strength. For instance, the Pan-Mass Challenge, a bike-athon to support Boston’s Dana Farber Cancer Institute, raised $57 million in 2017, making it the largest single event based on participants’ fundraising in America and representing a nearly 14 percent increase over 2016’s haul.

Other events that performed strongly last year:

• Children’s Miracle Network Hospital’s dance marathons, which raised almost $39 million in 2017, growing nearly 20 percent, faster than any other campaign in the top 30. It also saw the biggest jump in the number of participants from year to year, at 20 percent.
• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Cycle for Survival, which increased more than 13 percent last year, for a total of $34 million. The event is one in which teams of four participants ride stationary bikes in back-to-back 50-minute sessions.

Some events had notable declines:

• The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society sustained the biggest drop in donations. Its Team in Training events raised just over $24 million in 2017, a drop of nearly 28 percent. However, the charity’s Light the Night events, which upend the traditional walkathon by being held at night, increased 8 percent in 2017, to $74 million, even as the charity held 10 fewer of the events last year than in 2016.
• The American Diabetes Association, which held five fewer Tour de Cure events in 2017 than it had the previous year, saw revenue drop about 21 percent.
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which had two events in the rankings, faced significant decreases in both campaigns. The Komen Race for the Cure series, which raised about $61 million, saw revenues decline nearly 19 percent from 2016. The Komen 3-Day event raised $16 million in 2017, down just over 19 percent. In both cases, the charity held the same number of events as in 2016.

The complete Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Thirty is listed here:

How Much the Top 30 Athletic and Other Fundraising Events Raised in 2017

Note: Revenue figures show money raised before expenses.
*2017 data is for the fiscal year ending April 30, 2017.
Source: Peer-to Peer Professional Forum and Charity Dynamics