Big sporting events have become a major source of fundraising for charities around the world. The London City marathon is the world’s largest single annual fundraising event, raking in around R500 million every year. The South African sporting calendar is full of opportunities to raise money for good causes. But for all of our world-class sports events, South Africa seems to be off the pace when it comes to working out for the greater good.

Sports mad

We live in a sports-mad country. Our national teams are a source of both joy and anguish for the millions of us who share in their triumphs and disappointments. Many of us also participate in sports ourselves. Our country is home to the two biggest individually timed cycle races in the world - the Pick ‘n Pay Argus and the 94.7 Cycle Challenge. Over ten thousand South Africans line up every year to take part in the gruelling Comrades marathon; more participants than any other road race of a similar distance. The Dusi Canoe marathon, the Midmar Mile and the Two Oceans ultra-marathon all feature prominently on the South African sporting calendar.

Good causes

These events present major opportunities to raise money for good causes. In far too many cases, however, it is an opportunity missed. The Comrades Marathon, for example, set a fundraising target of R2 million last year for its Amabeadibeadi charity. The London Marathon, by contrast, raised about R500 million for a wide range of worthy causes. That is a massive 250 times more! The average amount raised per runner in the London Marathon was over R10,000 while the average amount raised by a Comrades runner was about R154.

An evolution

One reason for this, says Shiela McCallum from DoIt4Charity, a website that enables individuals to raise funds for charities of their choice, is that South Africa has been relatively slow in taking up new ways of giving. “It is an evolutionary process,” says McCallum, “and we are some years behind the USA and the UK.”

Allan Beuthin from Backabuddy, another online fundraising platform agrees. “We had someone who was from the States raise money for a South African charity using our website. He was able to raise over R80,000 in a matter of weeks, simply by using his networks back home. For them it is something they are familiar with. But in South Africa there just isn’t that kind of level of awareness about this kind of giving.”

Reluctance

Beuthin also points out that a lot of events organisers are reluctant to take on charities. “They feel that they should be giving website space to their sponsors rather than to charities. They also have to struggle with all the authorities to organise an event like this and having to deal with charities is an additional headache they could do without.”

Sweat it

Both Backabuddy and DoIt4Charity say that things are beginning to change. “Event organisers are beginning to see that they might be losing out. They are finding that platforms like ours give individuals the chance to raise money for whoever they chose” says Beuthin.

Encouragingly, it is increasingly up to the individual participants to choose that matters to them, and to make use of the simple technology that is available to make their race-day more than just a good workout. This gives South Africans a chance to show that we care about each other as much as we care about our sport.

> Choose a good cause to sweat for by exploring the almost 2,000 causes registered on our giving network.