5 Best Practices for Successful Endurance Fundraising Programs

Minimums matter. Fundraising pages matter. Every dollar matters.

For charities participating in major marathons, half marathons, and other endurance events, every race entry represents an opportunity to make a meaningful impact.

As a non-profit, getting charity bibs represents an opportunity to raise meaningful funds for your missions and diversify your revenue generation beyond owned opportunities. And while it can be a lower lift way to raise those funds, it comes with its own set of risks and investment needs. Running a successful endurance peer-to-peer fundraising program takes more than just filling spots and magically watching the funds flow. 

Applying to programs, paying for entries, managing recruitment, fundraising commitments, onsite experience support for runners, coaching, training support, engagement, stewardship…it all takes time and money to bring it to life.

On top of all those dynamics, endurance fundraising presents a unique dynamic unlike its owned events counterpart: participants can often be motivated more by access to a coveted race entry than by their own connection to the charity's mission.

While these programs can deliver significant ROI, they also come with risks that organizations need to manage.

Here are five best practices to help maximize the impact of your endurance peer-to-peer fundraising programs, mitigate potential risks, and ensure your technology is working alongside you to drive fundraising success and advance your mission.

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1. Make Every Bib Count

As road races are booming in popularity, charity entries are becoming increasingly limited and highly valuable. So while each bib represents  a valuable fundraising opportunity for your organization, it comes with a meaningful commitment of your organization's resources.

Successful programs start by approaching bib allocation strategically, rather than simply filling every available spot as quickly as possible.

Best practices:

• Build a thoughtful recruitment strategy. Identify the audiences most likely to succeed, including returning charity runners, existing supporters, and motivated new participants.
• Set clear program expectations. Communicate fundraising minimums, deadlines, participation requirements, and the support your organization provides before runners commit.
• Use applications to qualify runners. Collect information about applicants' motivations, previous fundraising experience, and plans for reaching their goals.
• Manage bib inventory carefully. Track applications, approvals, invitations, registrations, and available entries so no opportunity is overlooked.
• Measure performance beyond entries filled. Evaluate fundraising revenue per bib, minimum completion rates, and participant retention to understand the true value of your program.

Ask yourself: Are you simply filling charity entries, or maximizing the fundraising potential of every bib?

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2. De-risk your program before runners reach the starting line

Every fundraising initiative can come with risks of vary degrees. You invest funds upfront for the hope of potential return. The same is true for charity bibs, which often require you to buy the bibs upfront. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth the investment. Given the current demand, endurance fundraising can be an exceptionally good investment - as long as you appropriately work to mitigate the associated risks. 

Filling the entry is only one part of the journey. But securing a runner to take the spot doesn't guarantee that a runner will raise what you need to generate the impact to make the investment of time and money worth it.

So what do you do?

Well, the strongest programs build protections into every part of their process - from recruitment to balance handling - to mitigate the risks. Here are key best practices to help you do just that:

• Vet runners before awarding entries. Use interest forms, interviews,  approval workflows, and more  to assess a participant's fundraising plan and readiness. Be thoughtful about who is a good fit. The Mercy Home Heroes team handles personal interviews with every potential fundraiser. While time consuming, their per fundraiser success proves the model works. 
• Consider upfront fundraising milestones. Consider requiring runners to raise a portion of their minimum before receiving their registration invitation or application approval. This helps demonstrate commitment while protecting limited bib inventory.
• Capture payment credentials securely and obtain explicit authorization. If your program requires participants to cover unmet fundraising minimums, use secure payment workflows to collect card credentials and obtain clear authorization for any permitted future balances. Being technically able to charge a card doesn't mean you automatically have authorization to. Ensuring the proper notifications, authorizations, opt-ins, agreements, etc means you de-risk against failed charges or charge disputes. 
• Have strong failed payment workflows. Successfully charging balances is part of the story. Payment methods will fail, and being able to handle them seamlessly could mean the difference between lost revenue and more money for your mission. Your technology should not only charge cards appropriately, but automate payment failure notifications, provide complete visibility into failed payments, and easily allow retries. With Stripe’s automatic card updater capabilities, haku provides all of the above along with the ability to automatically pull new card data in certain cases - further helping reduce failed payments. 
• Monitor fundraising risk proactively. Identify participants falling behind their commitments and engage them well before collection becomes necessary.

All financial commitments and collection policies should be clearly disclosed, consistent with event and organizational requirements, and compliant with applicable payment rules.

Ask yourself: If a runner doesn't meet their fundraising minimum, do you have both the authorization and the technology to collect the outstanding commitment?

The bottom line: Protecting fundraising revenue starts long before a shortfall occurs.

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3. Make registration and fundraising one seamless journey

The moment a runner secures a charity entry is often when their excitement and motivation are highest.

If they haven’t already started fundraising, it should begin right when they register or you risk losing the momentum of that excitement and motivation.

So when race registration and fundraising operate in a disconnected fashion, participants may find themselves navigating additional accounts, activation steps, or confusing instructions before they can start raising money. This is one of the biggest places you risk losing them and can create long lasting impacts on fundraising outcomes. 

For your own team, those same gaps can mean extra administrative work, inconsistent participant records, and valuable fundraising time lost. When you’re running a lean team - as most non-profits are - that added work means less capacity to coach and steward fundraisers to success. So what can you do about it? Well here’s some tips and tricks we recommend:

• Connect registration and fundraising from the start. Ensure participants move naturally from joining the charity team to activating their fundraising experience. If they have to be multiple steps, audit the flow to find areas to reduce friction or smooth the experience out. 
• Create fundraising pages automatically. Every runner should have a fundraising page ready to personalize and share, without relying on separate manual processes. If they have to “claim” the page or set up the account separately, it’s just another barrier that makes it harder for them to raise those critical dollars for your mission. 
• Minimize duplicate accounts and data entry. Avoid requiring participants to repeatedly provide information or navigate disconnected systems. It’s frustrating and not the way they want to kick off their fundraising. 
• Make personalization simple. Help runners quickly add their stories, photos, goals, and connections to the cause. Set your own defaults for your mission, ensuring that your fundraisers have a fallback that still helps drive fundraising if they don’t make their own personalizations. 
• Prioritize the mobile experience. Make it easy for runners to share their pages and for supporters to donate from any device. Things like SMS appeals, Apple cards with QR codes to their fundraising pages, etc - they all make it easier for donors to give on-the-go which is a must have in our mobile first day and age. 
• Give staff visibility into activation. Your team should be able to identify registered runners who haven't started fundraising or are off-track to meet their minimums - and give them the tools and features to intervene early.

Ask yourself: Can every runner go from securing their charity entry to sharing an active fundraising page without unnecessary steps or administrative assistance?

The bottom line: Every additional barrier between registration and fundraising is a missed opportunity to build momentum.

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4. Think about the whole journey - not just the start and finish

Like any fundraising experience, endurance peer to peer  isn't a single moment. And just like running the race, fundraising is a journey that unfolds over months.

Successful charity programs embrace that timeline.

They use it as an opportunity to coach, train, and engage their fundraisers - both in the running part and in the fundraising part. For charity managers the journey becomes an opportunity to help your runners build relationships with the mission, stay motivated, and turn their physical training milestones into opportunities for fundraising.

This is especially important for runners who initially joined the program because of their desire to participate in the event rather than a personal connection to the cause. So what does that actually mean in practice? Well we recommend that you:

• Build a structured onboarding journey. Ensure you can easily help them answer key questions they’ll have before choosing your charity:
  
  • Why: Why your mission? Why your impact
  • What: What is required of them? Make minimums, deadlines, and key requirements clear and easy to understand. 
  • How: How do they get started? Where do they go to apply, get their spot, start their page, etc. If they have to dig too hard to figure out how, you’ll lose them. 
• Connect fundraising to training milestones. Fundraising is only part of the journey. Your fundraising is also lacing up and putting in the work to make the miles matter. By connecting fundraising opportunities to training moments, you make the entire experience more meaningful to your fundraiser - and more fruitful for your mission. 
• Make the mission personal. Share stories and demonstrate the impact of donations so runners understand what they're working toward beyond the finish line.
• Use automated, personalized communications. Celebrate fundraising achievements, recognize progress, and send targeted reminders when participants need encouragement.
• Identify runners who need support early and engage with them often. Use fundraising performance data to intervene early rather than waiting until minimum deadlines approach. Ensure you have tools, tips, and resources to support their growth as a fundraiser and help them achieve fundraising success. 
• Extend engagement beyond race day. Recognize achievements, thank donors and participants, and create opportunities for continued involvement. Why should they choose your mission again or recommend it to another runner?

Ask yourself: Are you actively helping runners become successful fundraisers, or simply giving them a page and hoping for the best?

The bottom line: A great endurance program turns race participants into mission advocates.

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5. Make the most of the technology you have

In endurance fundraising, you won’t always get to choose the fundraising platform. Events often require their charity partners to use specific fundraising platforms. While it can present a wrinkle for charities, events often make this decision for sound  reasons. Standardized systems can simplify event operations, create consistency, and help organizers manage complex programs at scale. And with the right platform partner, events can offer more opportunities and benefits to their charities that can help improve your fundraising outcomes. 

But that doesn't mean every platform will perfectly support your organization's needs. When technology creates friction or leaves gaps, being proactive can make all the difference. Here are a few ways to set your program up for success, no matter what platforms you’re using:

• Advocate for what your non-profit  needs. Share feedback with your event and technology partners. Be specific about the challenges you're experiencing, the impact on your fundraisers and staff, and what would make a meaningful difference.
• Audit the full participant journey. Experience the process yourself - every single step.  Registration and application workflows, fundraising accounts, and more. Identify confusing steps or potential roadblocks, then create FAQs, step-by-step guides, and support resources to help fundraisers navigate them independently. If resources allow, consider holding webinars for your fundraisers to support them, answer questions, and ensure there’s no confusion about how things work. 
• Have a fundraising minimum collection plan. Understand how the platform handles payment authorizations, outstanding balances, and failed payments. Establish a clear process for collecting unmet commitments, communicating with participants, and managing potential disputes or chargebacks.
• Know where you need additional visibility. Identify what your platform can and can't report on, particularly around outstanding commitments, participant progress,  actual revenue collected, payment failures, etc. Establish processes in place to close critical gaps before they become problems and create clear, well-defined documentation on them so your team can get aligned quickly. 
• Plan for the administrative lift. Identify which processes require manual intervention, assign clear ownership, and look for opportunities to streamline work so your team can spend more time supporting fundraisers.

Ask yourself: Have you identified where your technology may create challenges, and do you have a plan to keep those challenges from affecting your fundraising success?

The bottom line: You may not always control the technology behind your program, but you can control how you prepare for its limitations, advocate for improvements, and protect your fundraising outcomes.

We hope these best practices can help you see more fundraising success in your endurance programs.

At haku, we understand the unique demands of fundraising - whether it’s through endurance programs, your owned peer-to-peer experience, social events, or direct giving.

See how haku can help you raise more, spend less, and improve operational efficiency →