Charity Running Fundraising Tips: What Mikey Jones Learned From His First 10K

For people working in charity fundraising, supporting runners through their training and fundraising is a vital part of the job. You encourage them, provide fundraising ideas, check how their training is going and help them towards their target, but experiencing the challenge yourself can give you a very different perspective on what those runners are actually going through.

Mikey Jones works as Regional Fundraiser for North Wales at Shelter Cymru and spends part of his working life supporting people who take on running events for the charity. Until recently, however, he had never taken part in a running event himself. That changed when he signed up for a 10K in Wrexham with only around three and a half weeks to prepare.

Mikey went from virtually no running experience to completing his first 10K in around 53 minutes and raising approximately £640 for Shelter Cymru. When he joined Tim Rogers on the Sapphire Running Zone podcast, it was not simply the running that provided some of the most interesting lessons. Becoming a charity runner himself gave him a completely different perspective on fundraising, supporter motivation and the importance of good charity stewardship. He shared a wealth of charity running fundraising tips for whatever race you're doing next and whatever distance.

HAVE A LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

Why A Fundraiser Decided To Become A Runner

Mikey had two main reasons for taking on his first 10K. He wanted something that would help him stay active through the winter, when many of his usual activities were less accessible, but he also wanted to understand what charity runners actually experience when they commit to an event and start asking people to support them.

As a fundraiser, it is easy to ask a runner how their fundraising is progressing or whether they need any help. Mikey wanted to experience the training, fundraising and race day pressures for himself so that he could better understand the people he was supporting. With almost no previous running experience beyond school sport, that meant starting from the beginning, buying some running shoes and working out how he was going to get himself around 10K.

Initially, he did not particularly enjoy the running. As his training progressed, however, he began to appreciate the opportunity to get outside, clear his head and enjoy some time away from a busy family and working life. He noticed the mental benefits, increased energy and the post-run feeling that runners often talk about, but the fundraising element interested him from the very beginning.

Preparing For A First 10K In Three Weeks

Mikey's preparation was considerably shorter than we would normally recommend for someone starting from scratch. He decided to enter only around three and a half weeks before race day and began running approximately every other day, initially covering around one or two miles before progressing towards three or four miles and eventually regular 5K runs.

His longest training run was approximately 7K. For a completely new runner, a more typical beginner 10K training programme would be around 10 to 12 weeks, allowing the distance to increase gradually while providing enough recovery between sessions. You do not necessarily need to cover the complete 10K distance before race day, so reaching around 7K or 8K during training can be sufficient when the rest of the preparation has been consistent.

Mikey clearly had a good underlying level of fitness and managed the much shorter preparation remarkably well, completing his first 10K in approximately 53 minutes. He also experienced one of the classic first race mistakes by getting caught up in the excitement and starting faster than planned. Running alongside hundreds of other people feels very different from training alone, and he felt afterwards that doing something such as a parkrun beforehand might have helped him become accustomed to running in a group and controlling his early pace.

The Extra Pressure Of Running For Charity

Race morning brought another experience that Mikey had previously only seen from the fundraiser's side. By that point he had raised around £640 and suddenly felt a responsibility towards everyone who had sponsored him, shared his posts or followed his progress, adding another layer of nerves to the normal uncertainty of taking part in a first running event.

Rationally, he knew that supporters would understand if illness or injury prevented somebody from completing an event because, as a fundraiser, he had seen exactly that happen. Emotionally, however, it felt very different when he was the person standing on the start line. That sense of responsibility created additional pressure, but it also gave him another reason to keep going when the race became difficult.

Crossing his first finish line, with his wife and son there to see it, brought the kind of buzz that attracts so many people back to organised running events. The occasion, crowds and atmosphere transformed the experience from simply running 10K into something much bigger, and Mikey could suddenly understand why people become hooked on entering races.

Charity Running Fundraising Tips: Turn Your Training Into A Story

One of Mikey's most successful fundraising tactics was also one of the simplest. Rather than continually posting messages asking people to sponsor him, he used his training to create an ongoing story, sharing short videos showing the reality of becoming a runner in the space of a few weeks.

Sometimes the weather was bad, sometimes something hurt and on other days he talked about something he had discovered while running or simply showed where he was. The content was deliberately honest rather than polished, allowing people to follow a developing story rather than simply being presented with another sponsorship request.

The fundraising link could still be included without being the focus of every post. Mikey found that straightforward posts directly asking for money often generated less engagement than videos showing what he was actually doing, suggesting that giving people an interesting reason to follow the journey can make the eventual fundraising ask considerably more effective.

For charity runners, this is an important distinction. Fundraising through social media does not have to mean repeatedly posting your fundraising page and asking for donations. Your training, setbacks, progress, race preparation and reasons for supporting the charity all provide content that can bring supporters into the journey.

LinkedIn Became A Surprisingly Effective Fundraising Tool

Facebook and Instagram are obvious platforms for personal fundraising, but one of Mikey's biggest surprises was LinkedIn. He used a similar approach there, posting short updates about his training rather than continually asking for donations, and discovered that his professional network could become another valuable fundraising audience.

Some donations came from people he did not personally know but who were connected to him professionally through LinkedIn. For runners who regularly use the platform, their network may include former colleagues, clients, suppliers, local businesses and people working within their sector who would never see something posted solely to a personal Facebook or Instagram account.

It is a useful reminder that your fundraising audience can be much bigger than the people you immediately think of as friends and family. Different platforms reach different parts of your network, and telling the same underlying story in an appropriate way across several of them can introduce your fundraising to people you might never have considered approaching directly.

Read more about using Linkedin for your fundraising here.

Use Local Facebook Groups

Another important part of Mikey's fundraising came through local Facebook groups. Instead of restricting his posts to his own followers, he shared his story with groups serving Wrexham and the surrounding communities, some of which had audiences running into tens of thousands of people.

A local person training for a local running event while supporting a charity working in the community gives administrators and group members something relevant to engage with. Mikey found that people he did not know interacted with his content and some subsequently donated, showing the potential of community groups when the story genuinely has a local connection.

This approach is likely to work particularly well for runners taking part in smaller regional events. Rather than simply dropping a fundraising link into a group, explain what you are doing, why you are doing it and how the event connects with the local area. That gives people a reason to become interested before they are asked to donate.

Read more about using Facebook for your fundraising here.

Think About Corporate Sponsorship

Mikey also generated £100 through a simple piece of corporate sponsorship. He approached a contact at a local company and offered to feature its branding during his training content and on his charity running top on race day in return for a £100 donation.

The company agreed, providing an immediate boost to his total before he had approached most of his individual supporters. There was another benefit because once the business became involved, it had a reason to share Mikey's fundraising with its own audience, extending the reach of the campaign beyond the value of the original donation.

For runners with business contacts, particularly those taking part in local events, this can be an avenue worth exploring. A local business may be willing to make a donation in return for appropriate recognition, particularly where the runner, event and charity all have a connection with the area. For a bigger challenge and a larger fundraising target, approaching several businesses or creating different sponsorship levels could develop this idea much further.

Read more about corporate sponsorship here.

Smaller Running Events Can Create Bigger Fundraising Opportunities

Mikey also discovered an advantage to fundraising through a smaller running event when he tagged the event organisers in his social media content and some of it was subsequently shared with the event's audience. This provided additional exposure for his fundraising without requiring him to create anything beyond the content he was already producing.

That is much harder to achieve at the very biggest running events. Tens of thousands of people may be fundraising around a major marathon, making it impossible for organisers to highlight every individual story, whereas a smaller local race may have far fewer charity runners competing for attention.

The organisers need interesting content too, so sharing your training, fundraising story and connection with their event gives them something they may want to amplify. For the runner, that can mean reaching a completely new audience, while for the event it provides a positive story about somebody preparing to take part.

Where Did The £640 Come From?

One of the most useful parts of Mikey's experience was seeing how widely spread his fundraising eventually became. The £100 corporate donation gave him an immediate start, while his closest friends and family contributed roughly another £150. Facebook and local community groups generated approximately £200, with work colleagues adding around another £50.

A significant proportion of the remaining money came through LinkedIn and wider connections, including people Mikey did not personally know. Rather than one audience producing the entire £640, several relatively small groups combined to create a much stronger overall result.

This demonstrates why charity runners should avoid relying on a single audience. Friends and family will often provide the foundation of a fundraising campaign, but reaching a more ambitious target usually means moving beyond that first circle. Your workplace, professional network, local community, clubs, hobbies, businesses and online communities can all become separate fundraising audiences.

Mikey and the team at the end of the Wrexham 10k

Don't Forget The Awareness You Are Creating

Mikey raised approximately £640, but he believes the value of the campaign went beyond the amount shown on his fundraising page. Every training video, social post, community group update and shared piece of content introduced more people to Shelter Cymru and its work, including people who may previously have known very little about the charity.

That impact is difficult to measure because somebody may see your fundraising today, learn about the charity for the first time and support it months or even years later. They might volunteer, donate, fundraise themselves or simply understand more about the issue the charity exists to address, but that future action will rarely be directly attributed to the original runner.

For causes that can sometimes find it harder to attract attention, that awareness can be particularly valuable. Fundraising income matters, but a charity runner can also become a temporary ambassador for the organisation they are supporting, introducing its work to audiences that the charity itself may struggle to reach.

Use The Communities You Already Have

Mikey is also an artist with an established online following, although he deliberately chose not to make significant use of that audience for this relatively short fundraising campaign. If he were taking on a bigger challenge with a much higher target, it is one of the communities he would consider involving more directly.

An existing interest or community can provide another fundraising route. An artist might offer prints or organise a giveaway, while someone involved with a sports club could create an activity around that community. A runner working in a large office might organise a sweepstake, cake sale or workplace challenge, adapting the fundraising to the audience they already have around them.

Instead of simply asking who you can approach for money, think about the communities you are already part of and what you could do that would interest them. That shift can produce much more creative fundraising and help you reach people without making every interaction feel like another request for sponsorship.

Bigger Targets Need A Different Approach

Raising around £640 for a 10K in three weeks was a fantastic result, but Mikey recognised that raising several thousand pounds for something such as the London Marathon would require a different strategy. He would make greater use of his art following, approach more businesses, consider activities such as a quiz night and create more opportunities for people to become involved.

A £500 target and a £2,000 target should not necessarily have the same fundraising plan. As the target increases, you will normally need to expand the number of audiences you reach and introduce activities capable of generating larger amounts rather than relying entirely on individual sponsorship donations.

You also need to think carefully about when to use your best fundraising opportunities. Mikey talked about knowing when to use the assets you have available. If you have a strong raffle prize, for example, it may generate much more at an event where you have a large captive audience than somewhere surrounded by several other raffles competing for the same people.

What Mikey Learned About Charity Stewardship

Perhaps the biggest lesson from the whole experience came when Mikey looked at what it meant for his professional role. Having now experienced charity running himself, he believes even more strongly in personalised fundraising support rather than simply sending every runner the same information and occasionally asking how their fundraising is progressing.

A runner working in a solicitor's office has different opportunities from somebody working in a factory, while someone with thousands of followers connected to a hobby has a different potential audience from somebody with a large corporate network. Understanding those differences allows a fundraiser to suggest ideas that actually fit the individual.

Good stewardship can therefore mean asking better questions. Where does the runner work, what hobbies do they have, which communities are they part of and do they know any local businesses? What type of fundraising would suit their personality and circumstances?

The answers can help a charity provide ideas that are genuinely relevant rather than relying entirely on generic fundraising advice.

Mikey also found that discovering relatively straightforward fundraising ideas that produced a good return motivated him to do more. That is another important lesson for charities supporting event participants because good stewardship is not simply about helping somebody who is struggling. The right suggestion at the right moment can give an already successful fundraiser the confidence and motivation to push their target higher.

What Comes Next?

Completing his first 10K appears to have given Mikey the running bug, with a half marathon likely to be the next step and the possibility of a marathon further into the future. With a second child arriving, fitting marathon training into family life may have to wait a little longer, but his first experience has already changed the way he thinks about running fundraising.

In just a few weeks he went from having virtually no running experience to completing a 10K, raising around £640 and reaching new audiences for Shelter Cymru. More importantly, he experienced exactly what the runners he supports experience themselves: the uncertainty at the beginning, the pressure created by sponsorship, the challenge of finding new audiences and finally the satisfaction of crossing the finish line.

For somebody responsible for supporting charity runners, those lessons may ultimately prove even more valuable than the money he raised.

HAVE A LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE