Third-party events – marathons, cycling sportives, obstacle courses, mass participation swims – are among the most reliable fundraising formats in the charity sector. Participants are already motivated. The event provides structure, a deadline, and a social context that drives fundraising. Your job is to recruit the right people, connect them to a fundraising page quickly, and keep them engaged all the way to the finish line.
The gap between how straightforward that sounds and how hard it is to do well is where most charities lose money. This guide covers what third-party event fundraising involves, the most common failure points, and what leading charities do to maximise income from every place they hold.
Third-party event fundraising happens when a charity’s supporters participate in an event that someone else organises – a city marathon, a national cycling event, an obstacle race – and raise sponsorship money in the charity’s name. The event exists independently of the charity; the charity’s role is to secure places, recruit the right participants, and steward them through their fundraising journey.
Charities negotiate a block of guaranteed places in popular events – the London Marathon, the Great North Run, Ride London – and recruit supporters to fill them. In exchange for a guaranteed entry (which bypasses the public ballot entirely), supporters commit to raising a minimum amount. The charity covers the entry cost; the supporter raises the money. The charity’s income comes from the fundraising above that threshold.
This model generates some of the highest average fundraising amounts in peer-to-peer fundraising. Participants in the London Marathon regularly raise £2,000–£5,000 on average – driven by the structure of the challenge, the social visibility of taking part in a major event, and the motivation that comes from months of training with a cause behind them.
Average raised per charity place holder is typically 3–5x higher than in DIY or virtual challenge programmes.
The income opportunity is real, but so are the operational challenges. The most common failure points:
Fundraising and registration live in separate tools
Most charities manage their registration and payment process through a combination of tools that weren’t designed to work together: a form builder for registration, an external payment processor for charity place fees, a spreadsheet for tracking who has paid and who hasn’t, and an email platform for stewardship. The result is manual reconciliation that grows with every event, errors in participant tracking, and a fragmented experience for supporters.
The gap between registration and fundraising page creation
Even when a supporter has committed to a charity place and paid, there’s no guarantee they’ll set up their JustGiving page promptly. If the page creation step is separate from the registration journey – even by a single email – a meaningful proportion of participants will delay it indefinitely. Supporters who register in October for a March marathon and don’t start their page until January are far less likely to hit their fundraising target. Every week of delay costs income.
Team fundraising is hard to create, join, and manage
Many mass participation events have a strong team culture – groups of colleagues, friends, or supporters fundraising together under a shared banner. But most charities’ tools make team setup an afterthought: a separate step the supporter has to remember to do, long after they’ve registered. Teams that form late raise less, because they miss the early momentum that comes from a shared start.
Too much time spent on admin instead of relationships
With systems that don’t talk to each other, fundraising staff spend significant time downloading exports, matching registration data to fundraising data, and manually chasing supporters who haven’t yet set up their page. That’s time that could be spent calling a top fundraiser, thanking a supporter who’s just hit their target, or thinking about how to grow the programme.
The charities that consistently maximise income from third-party events share a set of practices:
A single connected journey – ticket, payment, and fundraising page in one flow
The best programmes get supporters from ‘I want to take part’ to ‘my JustGiving page is live’ without ever leaving the journey. A supporter selects their ticket, pays, and immediately creates their fundraising page – all in one flow, before they close their browser. This is the most effective way to ensure that every participant who secures a place also starts fundraising.
Team fundraising as part of the registration – not a separate step
The highest-performing programmes make team creation and joining a natural part of the registration flow. A supporter can create a team, join an existing one, and invite others – all in the same session they used to register. Teams that form at the point of registration consistently outperform those that form later, because the shared commitment is made from day one.
Stewardship that starts at registration, not a month before the event
Participants who hear from the charity throughout their training journey raise more than those who only receive communications in the final weeks. A welcome that celebrates their commitment, a fundraising page prompt within 24 hours, milestone messages as they hit training and fundraising targets – all of this can be automated while still feeling personal.
Recruitment connected to fundraising outcomes, not just clicks
The most efficient recruitment happens through targeted Meta advertising – Facebook and Instagram lead ads that capture interested participants without them leaving the platform. The charities that get the most from their ad spend connect cost per lead to cost per Active Fundraiser, so they can see which ads are actually driving income – not just sign-ups.
GivePanel Events × JustGiving was designed from scratch in collaboration with GivePanel, JustGiving, and major UK charities – built to solve the fragmentation problem at the heart of third-party event fundraising. It’s not another integration or a registration form bolted onto an existing platform. It’s a shared foundation for events and fundraising, shaped by both platforms working together.
The product is built around three areas:
Event Builder – full control, no developer needed
Your team configures every aspect of the event through GivePanel’s Event Builder: ticket types (standard, concession, group), data capture fields, discount codes, branded forms, team fundraising setup, and safeguarding controls. Complex events with multiple ticket types, conditional data capture, and group bookings can be configured without any technical resource. Standard events can be set up and ready to go in 30 minutes or less.
Supporter Forms – mobile-optimised, one connected journey
From the moment a supporter clicks ‘register’, the journey moves from ticket selection to payment to JustGiving fundraising page creation in a single uninterrupted flow. No separate systems. No redirects. No manual matching. Every supporter who registers through GivePanel Events × JustGiving arrives in your JustGiving dashboard with an active fundraising page — and the option to create or join a fundraising team as part of the same step.
Dashboards and Reporting – one place, real time
Registration, payment, fundraising, and team data — unified in a single dashboard, updating in real time. Advanced filters and a report builder let your team cut by registration status, payment status, fundraising amount, and team membership. CSV exports connect directly to your CRM or finance system. No manual reconciliation. No spreadsheets.
“As we continue to build our mass portfolio at the RSPCA, GivePanel has been a fantastic tool — the design is simple and much easier to use than our standard CRM systems. Since using GivePanel we have seen a significant improvement in mass event recruitment.”
– RSPCA
Find out why charities choose GivePanel for their third-party event programme →
What is a charity place in a third-party event?
A charity place is an entry to a mass participation event – a marathon, a cycle sportive, an obstacle course – that the event organiser has allocated to a specific charity. The charity secures a block of places and recruits supporters to fill them. In exchange for the guaranteed entry (which bypasses the public ballot), supporters commit to raising a minimum fundraising target. The charity covers the entry cost; the supporter raises the money. Popular events like the London Marathon are heavily oversubscribed through the public ballot, which makes charity places one of the only routes for a general applicant to guarantee entry.
How does team fundraising work in GivePanel Events × JustGiving?
Supporters can create a fundraising team, join an existing team, manage their team, and invite others – all as part of the registration flow, in the same session they use to register and pay. There’s no separate step and no workaround required. Team data feeds directly into your dashboards, so you can track group performance and total team fundraising alongside individual results. Teams formed at the point of registration consistently raise more, because the group commitment is made from the start.
Can I manage multiple events in GivePanel at the same time?
Yes. Each event is a separate campaign in your GivePanel account, with its own registration forms, ticket types, stewardship journeys, and dashboards. You can manage your London Marathon places, a cycle sportive, and a major autumn running event all in the same account – with all your supporter data in one place and no manual reconciliation between systems.
Does GivePanel Events × JustGiving support safeguarding requirements?
Yes. Built-in tools for events involving under-18s include: child ticket management, parent or guardian data capture, and terms and conditions controls. There’s also a dedicated testing mode that lets you QA your entire registration and payment flow without affecting live data or generating real transactions.
How quickly can I set up an event?
Standard single-ticket events can be configured and ready to accept registrations in 30 minutes or less. More complex events – with multiple ticket types, group booking options, conditional data capture, or safeguarding controls – take longer, but no developer resource is required at any point. The GivePanel team works with you through onboarding for your first event.
GivePanel Events × JustGiving is used by charities across the UK to connect registration, payment, and JustGiving fundraising in a single journey – from a single platform built specifically for this purpose.