The Bridge to Brisbane charity run has been an institution in South East Queensland, Australia, for decades. It attracts more than 40,000 runners of all ages and abilities every year. But here’s the thing, it has never been overly successful at actually raising funds for charities. Between the global financial crisis at the time, charity fatigue, and general overfamiliarity with the event, previous campaigns struggled to motivate people to open up their wallets and make a difference.
The insight came through looking at the runners themselves. Most of them were fun runners, but there were also a decent number of competitive runners as it’s the largest and most well-known running event in Queensland. Fun runners could never compete with the hardcore types on their finishing times, but what if we could even the race by using fundraising as part of the event?
The concept was simple – for every dollar a runner raised for charity, they could take one second off their finishing time. This helped overcome the barrier of charity fatigue as runners could ask for time from their supporters instead of money. The idea was also newsworthy enough for word to spread quickly and, more importantly, change the perception of the race from just another fun run to being a major fundraising event.
Multiple media outlets picked up the story and the number of fundraisers doubled. The previous fundraising record was passed seven full weeks before the event and donations increased from $355,000 to $785,000 – more than doubling the previous year’s total.
