The Justgiving Blog

Cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats, climbing the 3 Peaks, rowing the length of the Thames and swimming the Channel – those are just a few of the challenges Colin Clerkin will have completed by the end of this year – and all without leaving Chester.

Intrigued?

Keep reading to find out all about Colin’s amazing and inventive fundraising idea, the 365challenge. Oh – and you can join in too!

How did the idea of the 365challenge first come to you?

In 2007, I was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma and underwent surgery, followed by radiotherapy. Then in 2008, my sister, Brenda Carr, died after a long battle with breast cancer. Following on from this, I knew that I wanted to raise money to support Cancer Research UK, because I felt that they were supporting important work in the fight to overcome cancer.

I’ve done one-off fundraising events in the past, but this time, because of the impact of cancer on my family and my life, I really wanted to do something that would have an impact and get people’s attention, so that I could raise as much money as possible for Cancer Research UK. That got me thinking that I needed to do more than one event, so I had the idea of spending a year doing things to raise funds. I didn’t want to keep going back to people asking for sponsorship for this 10K or that swim, so I thought I’d create something that would run across the year, and cumulatively build on my efforts… people would only be asked to sponsor me once, but they would see that I was putting a heck of a lot of effort into my fundraising, so hopefully that would be reflected in their support. Then there was also the fact that I work for myself, so couldn’t easily take time off to go away and do events, like climb Kilimanjaro, or whatever, so I needed something I could do ‘at home’.

The idea started to germinate then and it quickly became a year of activity in the gym, but adding the miles up as I went along so that they reflected recognisable ‘events’, like cycling Lands End to John O’Groats. The 365 is simply the 365 days of the year I’m spending on my various challenges, including cycling the LEJOG distance (1600 KM), climbing the 3 Peaks (3.4 KM of climb), rowing the length of the Thames (346 KM) and swimming the Channel (35.4 KM).

Once I had the title, I began to develop the concept, encouraging others to have a go and create their own 365challenges too. Now there are around 20 365’ers, doing their own year-long challenges for CRUK, including things like running a marathon a month for a year (in the gym) and Rob, who is ‘raising’ 36500 gallons of cider!

Are you thinking about the real places, as well as the virtual ones, when you’re on the treadmill or in the pool?

Occasionally! As the swim was coming to an end, I was really looking forward to climbing out of the water onto ‘French’ soil (and opening a nice bottle of red to celebrate), and recently, I hit the 1000km mark on my bike ride, which effectively is around Carlisle, so I was really looking forward to heading ‘into Scotland’ for the rest of the ride! But usually, I’m just head down on whatever machine I’m using at the time, letting my iPod keep me entertained as I plough on.

Have you considered upping your fundraising target, now you’ve passed it so impressively?

When I set this up, I decided to set £3,650 as my target, as it fitted the 365challenge in several ways. I liked that visual link, but it was also equivalent to raising £10 a day across my year long challenge, which I thought was a do-able target.

Then I began thinking about how people often ask “how much should I sponsor you?” when you ask for their sponsorship. I came up with the idea of asking people to sponsor me whatever amount they wished to, but that if they felt that they could sponsor me 1% of my overall target, or £36.50, which is the equivalent of 10 pence a day for my 365challenge year, then I would add their name to my ‘1%ers Club’ page on my website to acknowledge their support.

This has been a huge success for me, and I now have 107 members of that club. The 1%ers generosity – and the fact that Justgiving makes donating online so easy – helped me hit my original goal by the first day of my 365challenge, September 1st 2008, and the pot has grown steadily since. I’ve raised £7,057 so far, with still 5 months to go.

I’ve certainly thought about changing my target figure from £3,650, as I’ve well and truly passed it, but I decided to keep it as my headline target because of its links both to the name of the event AND the 1%ers Club. All those people have earned their place in that club with their generosity, so I don’t feel that I can take that away from them.

Having said that, I’m still pushing for support and it would be great if my personal 365challenge topped £10,000 by the end of my 365challenge year! We’ve actually passed that mark when the other 365’ers fundraising efforts are added to the pot, and as many of them have only recently started their 365challenges, I hope to see the total grow steadily.

In fact, I have a new, much bigger, goal now, and that’s to find 365 people to take the 365challenge for Cancer Research UK. If they all set £3,650 as their fundraising target and work to raise that over their 365challenge year, that could add up to £1.3 million for Cancer Research UK, which would be phenomenal!

People could adapt what they are already doing, perhaps, to become part of the 365challenge. For example, if someone is running the Race for Life this summer, but wants more of a challenge, why not decide to run a Race for Life a week for your 365challenge year? That gets sponsors attention!

What different methods do you use to let people know about the 365 challenge?

The 365challenge wouldn’t have been anything like as successful as it has been without the internet and email.

As I was setting up the 365challenge, I created a website, www.365challenge.co.uk, to promote it and let people know how to support me, do their own 365challenge, or track my progress over the year. Then I set up my Justgiving page at www.justgiving.com/365challenge and that has been a major factor in helping me achieve the total I’ve raised so far: it just makes donating so easy for people.

I created several email lists also, and wrote a series of introductory emails, firstly to friends and family, and, once they had started sponsoring me through my Justgiving page, I sent emails to just about everyone in my contacts address book. I explained what I was doing and why, and invited people to support me. I explained also that I would be emailing them regularly with updates on my progress, and included a line to let them know that if they didn’t want to receive these updates, they just had to reply to me with the word ‘REMOVE’ in the subject line and I’d take them off the circulation list. I think this is very important, as otherwise you can put people off not only you, but your cause too, if they feel they are being repeatedly targeted.

I now send monthly email updates to these lists on what I’ve been up to with my 365challenge, and these reminders help prompt additional sponsorship.

I also write a regular blog at http://365challenge.blogspot.com/ and I set up a Facebook Group – ‘365challenge for Cancer Research UK’.

More recently, I have discovered the joy of Twitter too, and this has been a great way to link up with people and develop support. I’ve connected with fellow fundraisers through this, but most importantly, I’ve made important contacts with people who can help me take the 365challenge to the next level, including you guys at Justgiving! People can ‘follow’ me at www.twitter.com/365er.

How do people usually respond when you tell them about it?

When I spell out the four elements of my 365challenge – swimming the channel, climbing the 3 Peaks, rowing the Thames and cycling the LEJOG – all to be completed in a year – people usually respond with amazement or disbelief!

When I then tell them that I’m doing all of this without leaving Chester, and explain how I’ll build up the miles for each challenge over the year with my visits to the gym, that usually gets a laugh, followed by “that’s a really good idea, and it’s a really good cause …!” They love how simple the idea is and then they usually start trying to work out what they could do if they did a 365challenge. And then, they usually sponsor me!

How much do the comments on your Justgiving page help to spur you on?

The comments from sponsors on my Justgiving page are really important to me, and drive me on to do even more. They could be from friends or total strangers who have somehow heard about the 365challenge, from people who have lost someone or have fought cancer themselves. Some are very moving and some just make me smile, but each and every one of them helps me keep going with this 365challenge – I love them.

How did you find setting up your own website? How has it been helpful?

I used Google Sites to create my website – it’s very easy and fairly intuitive, and, best of all, it’s free! I did buy the domain name www.365challenge.co.uk, and a friend of mine with an IT business agreed to host the site for me for free, which was a great boost. Having the site has helped a great deal: I can direct people there to learn more about the 365challenge, post details of all of my 1%ers, and I’ve created a link to the site in my email signature, so everyone who gets emails from me has the 365challenge put in front of them with minimal effort on my part. I’m just using the available technology and, I guess, building the 365challenge ‘brand’.

If you could give one message to the Justgiving community, what would it be?

Justgiving offers people an amazing fundraising tool. It is so simple to create a page and link it to your chosen charity. Within a few minutes, you can be ready to roll your message out in an email to potential sponsors, who can support you with just a few clicks of a mouse – the money goes straight to your charity and the pressure to follow people up to collect their donations is taken off you – it’s a no-brainer!

But… some people get through the first part of this process, setting up their page, but then never take the necessary next step of sharing their Justgiving page with their friends and family because they are reluctant to pose the question “will you sponsor me, please?” To those people, my message is this: you are doing something important here, undertaking some form of challenge to try to help raise vitally-needed funds for a charity that somehow has touched your heart. Your efforts are worth supporting, and people will support you if you give them the chance. Don’t be embarrassed about asking for sponsorship. Remember the “why” behind your decision to do your fundraising event in the first place, and know that your effort is for someone else, not just you, and they need you to be bold and ask the “will you sponsor me, please?” question.

So go on and do it – send that email with the link to your Justgiving page now! Justgiving makes it easy – use this resource and support your chosen charity fully… and if you happen to fancy taking on a 365challenge for CRUK alongside me and the other 365ers, do please get in touch! You can email me on colin@365challenge.co.uk, or tweet me at www.twitter.com/365er.

Brilliant idea, impressively publicised Colin – out hats off to you. Good luck with all your challenges and please let us know how you get on!