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How to Create the Perfect Enthuse Fundraising Page and Raise More Money
- Aug 5
- 12 min read
Updated: Aug 14
If your charity or running event uses Enthuse for online fundraising, you may find that a fundraising page is created for you as part of the registration process. That makes getting started easy, but the page you begin with should be treated as a starting point rather than the finished version your supporters will see throughout your fundraising campaign.
The best Enthuse fundraising pages are personal, regularly updated and clearly explain both the challenge and the cause. Your page should tell supporters who you are, what you are doing, why you are doing it and what their donation could help achieve.
Personalise the Page Without Removing Useful Charity Information
There is good evidence that taking the time to personalise your page matters. During Pancreatic Cancer UK's 2025 London Marathon campaign, the average value of fundraising pages was £3,178, rising to £3,705 among fundraisers who customised their profiles.
Enthuse's analysis of Marie Curie's 2026 London Marathon campaign provides another useful insight. Among fundraisers who raised at least £2,500, 99% had added a profile picture, 84% had added their story and 86% had donated to their own page.
None of those things guarantees fundraising success, but they show how commonly successful fundraisers make proper use of their page. Spending a little time improving yours before you start asking people to donate is well worthwhile.
Depending on the charity and event, your Enthuse fundraising page may already contain information or imagery when you first access it. Some pages are automatically created during event registration, while other fundraisers create their page through a charity's Enthuse website.
Do not assume that everything already on the page should be replaced. Enthuse is designed to provide charity branded fundraising experiences, so your charity may have supplied useful information, imagery or content explaining the cause.
Instead, look at what is already there and then make the page personal to you. Enthuse allows fundraisers to customise elements including their profile picture, background image, fundraising target and story, although the precise options available can depend on how the charity or event has configured its fundraising pages.
The finished page should combine the charity's useful information with your personal story. Somebody who knows you should arrive and immediately recognise that they are supporting your challenge rather than looking at a generic event fundraising page.
Add a Profile Picture
One of the simplest improvements you can make is adding a profile photograph. Enthuse repeatedly identifies profile pictures as one of the features associated with better-performing fundraising pages, and the Marie Curie data shows just how common they are among successful fundraisers.
Choose a clear photograph in which people can easily recognise you. A running photograph, a picture in your charity vest or another appropriate image connected with your challenge can all work well.
Remember that the purpose of the photograph is not simply decoration. It reassures potential donors that they have reached the right person's page and immediately makes the fundraising feel more personal.
You can also change the photograph as the campaign develops. Pancreatic Cancer UK, for example, encourages its fundraisers to update their profile picture during training, perhaps replacing the original photograph with a training selfie wearing the charity vest.
That is a simple way of showing that the challenge is progressing. By race week, your page does not have to look exactly as it did when you first created it.
Make Good Use of the Background Image
Enthuse also allows a background or header image to be used on fundraising pages, although your charity may already have provided one. If you have the option to replace it, think about whether a personal image would tell your story more effectively.
A photograph from training, an image connected with the event or something relevant to your reason for fundraising could all work. Alternatively, the charity's supplied image may already look excellent and reinforce the cause you are supporting, in which case there is no reason to replace it simply for the sake of changing something.
Your profile picture and background image have different jobs. The profile photograph identifies you, while the larger image gives you another opportunity to establish the challenge, charity or story behind the page.
Write Your Own Fundraising Story
Your story is one of the most important parts of an Enthuse fundraising page. Enthuse's fundraising guidance consistently identifies adding a personal story as one of the actions associated with higher fundraising totals.
Start by explaining why you are taking on the challenge and why you chose the charity. If there is a personal connection with the cause, explain it if you are comfortable doing so, but your motivation does not have to involve a dramatic personal story to be genuine.
Perhaps you have seen the charity's work and want to help, somebody you know has benefited from its services or you simply decided that completing a difficult running challenge was an opportunity to support a cause that matters to you. Whatever the reason, write it in your own words.
Avoid making the story sound like promotional copy from the charity. People visiting the page are interested in the organisation, but they are also interested in you and why you have decided to support it.
Put the Important Part First
Do not hide your motivation halfway down a long fundraising story. Someone arriving on the page should quickly understand what you are doing and why it matters to you.
A strong opening might establish that you are running your first marathon and why you chose the charity before expanding on the details. Event background and other information can come later if it genuinely helps the story.
This is particularly important when there is a personal connection with the cause. Give visitors the information that makes them care about the challenge before asking them to work through less important details.
Give the Page a Clear Title
Your page title is another opportunity to make the fundraising feel personal. Use it to help somebody understand what the page is about rather than leaving it sounding generic.
A straightforward title involving your name, event or challenge will usually work better than something vague. You do not need a clever slogan if a simple title tells supporters exactly what they need to know.
Depending on the charity's Enthuse setup, you may also have options to personalise other elements of your page. Use the options available to you, but prioritise clarity and recognition over trying to make every element different.
Explain the Charity and the Cause
Some people visiting your page will know you but know very little about the charity. Give them enough information to understand what the organisation does and why you believe its work deserves their support.
Do not simply copy several paragraphs from the charity's website. Explain the cause naturally and, where possible, connect it with your own reason for fundraising.
Remember that your charity may already have provided useful information elsewhere on the page. Your job is not necessarily to repeat it, but to add the personal connection that explains why you have chosen to support its work.
Show What Donations Could Achieve
A fundraising target tells people how much you hope to raise, but explaining what that money could help achieve gives the figure much more meaning. Check whether your charity provides reliable examples showing what particular donation amounts could contribute towards.
If £10 could help provide a particular service or £50 could contribute towards something specific, include suitable examples in your story. Do not invent figures or assume what a donation pays for, because these examples should always come from information supplied by the charity.
This approach is particularly useful when fundraising for an organisation that some of your friends and colleagues may not know. It helps turn an abstract donation into something a supporter can understand.
Add Useful Links Where They Help the Story
Enthuse allows links to be included within fundraising stories, giving you another way to help visitors understand the cause without filling your page with large amounts of copied information.
If you mention a particular charity service, project or campaign, you could link to the relevant page on the charity's website where appropriate. Somebody who wants to learn more can then do so while your own fundraising story remains concise and personal.
Do not overload the story with links or send people away from the donation page unnecessarily. Use them selectively when they genuinely add useful context to something you have written.
Explain Your Challenge Properly
Tell supporters exactly what you are doing and when you are doing it. For a running event, include the distance and event and explain anything that makes the challenge particularly significant for you.
If it is your first marathon, say so. If you have gone from barely running to preparing for a half marathon, explain the journey, while running in fancy dress, attempting a particularly demanding event or setting yourself another meaningful challenge can also form part of the story.
Non-runners may not appreciate how much preparation is involved unless you tell them. Months of training and hundreds of miles before marathon day can make the challenge considerably more impressive to somebody who has never trained for one.
Set a Fundraising Target
A fundraising target gives supporters something tangible to help you achieve. Enthuse's research consistently identifies setting a target as one of the behaviours associated with stronger fundraising performance.
If you have a charity place with a minimum fundraising commitment, make sure your target reflects what you have agreed to raise. Own-place runners can choose an appropriate target based on their challenge and fundraising plans.
Do not worry if the original target turns out to have been too cautious. Where your page allows the fundraising goal to be edited, reaching it early can become an opportunity to celebrate and set yourself a more ambitious figure.
Start Your Page Early
Do not wait until race day is approaching before properly setting up and activating your fundraising page. An early start gives the page time to develop alongside your training and provides more opportunities for supporters to follow the journey.
There is evidence that this can make a substantial difference. In Enthuse's analysis of Marie Curie's 2026 London Marathon campaign, runners who started receiving donations in May and June raised £638 more on average.
Starting early does not mean repeatedly asking the same people for money for months. It means getting the page properly personalised, beginning the fundraising and then allowing the story, photographs, training and total to develop naturally as the event gets closer.
Consider Making the First Donation Yourself
An empty fundraising page can be harder to get moving than one where somebody has already donated. Enthuse recommends making a donation to your own page as one way of kick-starting the campaign.
The Marie Curie data is particularly interesting here. Among its 2026 London Marathon fundraisers who raised £2,500 or more, 86% had donated to their own page.
A self-donation can demonstrate your own commitment and also establishes an early donation amount on the page. You do not have to make a large contribution, and nobody should put themselves under financial pressure to do it.
You could also ask a few close friends or family members to help get the page moving before you direct a much wider audience towards it. A page that already shows some support and progress can feel very different from one sitting at zero.
Use Photos and Video to Develop the Story
Your page does not need to remain visually unchanged after you set it up. Enthuse supports images and video within fundraising content, allowing the page to become more visual as your challenge develops.
Training provides plenty of material for runners. A first long run, your charity vest arriving, a difficult training session, reaching your longest distance and eventually collecting your race number can all help the page develop.
The important thing is to use content that adds to the story rather than uploading images simply to fill space. By race week, someone should be able to look at your page and see evidence of the journey that brought you to the start line.
Keep Posting Updates
An Enthuse fundraising page should be treated as something that develops throughout your challenge rather than something you create once and forget. Fundraisers can add text and photo updates so supporters can follow their progress.
Enthuse's research shows that regularly updated pages tend to perform better. That gives you a good reason to return to the page during training rather than concentrating exclusively on the story you wrote when you first set it up.
Updates could cover your longest run, a training setback you have overcome, receiving your race number, reaching a fundraising milestone or entering the final week before the event. Each one adds another chapter to the story and gives returning visitors something new to see.
Try to make updates worth reading rather than repeatedly writing that you still need donations. Tell people what has happened, add a relevant photograph where appropriate and let the fundraising progress form part of that story.
Use Fundraising Milestones
Enthuse can automatically add fundraising milestones to a page as the campaign develops. These can include the first donation and progress through different percentages of your fundraising target.
These markers help make progress visible to supporters and provide natural moments to celebrate. Reaching halfway, for example, gives you an obvious opportunity to post another update and thank everybody who has helped get you there.
This is another reason to set a meaningful fundraising target rather than leaving the page without one. The target gives both the totaliser and those milestones a clear purpose.
Connect Your Strava Account
For runners, one of the most useful Enthuse features is its Strava integration. You can connect Strava to your fundraising page so supporters can see training activity as your preparation progresses.
This turns the training itself into part of the fundraising story. Somebody considering a donation can see that a marathon or half marathon involves considerably more than simply turning up on race morning.
There is an important privacy consideration. Check your Strava privacy and activity visibility settings so you understand what information will be displayed before connecting your account.
If you are happy sharing your activity, the integration can provide an excellent visual record of the work behind the challenge. It is particularly useful during a long marathon training programme when the page might otherwise have relatively little new activity between updates.
Thank Individual Donors
This is one Enthuse feature that is particularly worth using. Enthuse provides a way for fundraisers to post a thank you to donors, and the donor can receive your message by email.
Enthuse's own research suggests that thanking donors is associated with stronger fundraising performance. A personal thank-you also makes the experience much more human than allowing a donation to appear on the page without acknowledgement.
Do not turn this into a standard response that you paste under every donation if you have the time to personalise it. Mentioning the person's message or simply writing a genuine sentence of appreciation can make their interaction with your page feel much more personal.
Respect the choices of people who donate anonymously or choose not to make their details public. If somebody has deliberately hidden their identity, do not attempt to identify or thank them publicly.
Add Offline Donations Where Available
You may receive donations away from your online page through cash sponsorship or another fundraising activity. On Enthuse pages where the feature is enabled, offline donations can be added so the visible total reflects money raised elsewhere.
There is an important qualification because this option is not available on every Enthuse campaign or event. Charities can control the feature and it may not be available on some mass participation event pages.
Adding an offline donation does not automatically send that money to the charity. You remain responsible for making sure separately collected money reaches the organisation unless another payment process has been agreed.
Use the QR Code
Enthuse fundraising pages can use QR codes to make it easier for somebody to reach the donation page. This is useful whenever the potential donor is looking at something physical rather than already clicking a link online.
A QR code could appear on a fundraising poster, workplace notice or material at a fundraising event. Someone can scan it with their phone and go directly to the page rather than having to search for you later.
Always test the QR code yourself before using it publicly. The purpose is to make reaching your page as quick and straightforward as possible.
Check the Page on Your Phone
Once you have personalised everything, look at your Enthuse page as though you were a potential donor. Check it on a phone as well as a larger screen because many people will arrive through a message or QR code on their mobile.
Look particularly at the title, profile picture, background image and beginning of the story. Those elements should quickly answer the essential questions of who you are, what you are doing and why you are asking for support.
Read through the complete page as well and check event dates, names, spelling, links and any information about the charity. A page does not need to look professionally designed, but it should look as though you have taken some care over it.
Keep the Page Going After Race Day
Do not abandon your Enthuse page as soon as you cross the finish line. The post-event period remains an important part of the fundraising journey, and people who intended to donate earlier may still support you once they see that the challenge has been completed.
Add a finish line or medal photograph and tell supporters how the race went. Thank everyone who helped you, mention the amount raised and explain how close you are to the target if there is still a little way to go.
The completed event provides the final chapter of the story you began when the page was created. It also means that somebody discovering the page afterwards can see the reason for fundraising, the training, the progress and ultimately the achievement they are being asked to support.
The Perfect Enthuse Fundraising Page Should Keep Changing
A good Enthuse fundraising page is not simply the page created when you register for an event. It should become increasingly personal as the challenge progresses, showing supporters the person, cause and effort behind the fundraising.
Start with the basics and do them properly. Add a recognisable profile picture, make good use of the background image, write your own story, retain useful charity information, explain the cause and challenge, and set a meaningful fundraising target.
Start early and consider making the first donation yourself. Then add photographs, video and meaningful updates, connect Strava if appropriate, thank individual donors and keep eligible offline fundraising reflected in the total.
By the time you reach race day, the page should tell a much richer story than it did at the beginning. Once the challenge is complete, add the result, photograph and final thanks so supporters can see exactly what their donations helped you achieve.
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