Fundraising survey results

A week or so ago I asked about how the fundraising was going.

My thinking was that it's harder this year given that people are feeling a bit less generous under these grey economic clouds.

I've had a pleasant time looking at the results, but though the sample size is way too small to be interpreted to mean anything significant.

To give a bit of background on the sample:

• 62.5 per cent respondents have a bond place
• 37.5 per cent of respondents have run the London marathon before

Which is about what I expected.

• pledge levels of those with a bond place range from £1,000 to £4,000 with a mean average of £2,000
• 37.5 per cent of respondents are confident (either quite or very) about reaching their target
• 25 per cent are worried (either quite or very) about reaching their target

Oddly, the highest pledge is quite confident they'll get there, but the lowest is slightly worried. I say oddly, but if you'd pledged to raise four grand I'm guessing you'd need balls of steel (or female equivalent) so are probably quite a confident person anyway.

• 80 per cent of those with ballot places will top up the total if they don't reach it themselves
• 71.4 per cent of those responding are finding it difficult to get donations
• Of those who have run the London Marathon before, two-thirds are finding fundraising harder than before. The remaining third are finding it the same – no-one's finding it easier

It's encouraging that despite almost three quarters of respondents finding it difficult to get donations, only a quarter are worried about not being able to reach their targets.

I guess if you're running a marathon you're already a pretty determined kind of person, so you'll be knuckling down and getting on with it.

Hopefully the four-fifths who said they'd top up their donations up themselves won't have to do that – the idea that you should have to dig into your own pocket after all these months of training and work seems cruel and unusual to me.

But then this whole training for, and running a marathon, is pretty cruel and unusual.