The story
About Mencap
Founded in 1946, Mencap is one of the UK’s leading disability charities. The charity believes that every person with a learning disability should have the right to live a happy and healthy life the way they choose and strive for a world where people with a learning disability or autism live life to the full.
Mencap funds its services via a mixture of fundraising and grants and it’s with this money that it’s able to serve those in need. This includes a free helpline, campaigning and activism work as well as its Me Time initiative. This involves a range of day opportunities provided to people with learning disabilities to help them take part in everyday activities outside their home.

Mencap was keen to maximise their fundraising from the 2024 TCS London Marathon
The need
Managing participants for strong fundraising
The TCS London Marathon is one of the biggest fundraising days in the calendar and it’s one that Mencap was keen to make the most of for the 2024 event.
A fundraising platform that was co-branded with the event and Mencap’s logos and colours to spread awareness was a key consideration but above all, the charity wanted it to be easy for participants to use and staff to manage so they could raise as much as possible from the big day.
The charity elected to use Enthuse, the official online fundraising platform for the TCS London Marathon.
The Enthuse approach
Maximising fundraising for the TCS London Marathon
Ask any charity, preparing for an event like the TCS London Marathon is a big deal. There’s lots of variables and moving parts, which is why you want to consolidate and manage as much of that work as possible into one place.
Mencap uses the Enthuse Fundraising and Events solution for its activity outside of the Marathon, which meant they could manage sign-ups for 2024 TCS London Marathon places through Enthuse. This is called pre-console event registration. Using this, prospective participants could register their interest in a charity place through a Mencap-branded event form. They were then directed to a page to pay a £100 entry fee, fill out contact details, requirements for a running vest, dietary needs for the post-race reception and permissions for marketing opt-ins. This meant the charity had everything they needed to contact participants and help prepare them for the event.
In addition, Mencap decided to implement a minimum sponsorship target of £2,500 and within the form the cause was able to outline milestone amounts to hit by certain dates (e.g. £500 by December 6, £1,000 by February 5). A great way to get buy-in and ensure fundraisers knew of the charity’s expectations.
Using Enthuse Fundraising and Events in conjunction with the official TCS London Marathon platform, Mencap was then able to allocate its charity places to successful applicants. This meant participants automatically had official fundraising pages created upon confirmation of their charity place, so they could start sharing their page for donations right away. As a result, Mencap didn’t have to spend valuable time chasing participants to set up their pages. It also minimised the possibility of duplicated pages, as there wasn’t a need to set up a fundraising page on a third party platform. All in all, this made it easier for the charity to monitor fundraisers’ progress.

Less time spent setting up pages meant more time helping fundraisers
This process linked well with Mencap’s stewardship programme for the event. The charity created a WhatsApp group with participants as an easy way for everyone to communicate, running a ‘Fundraiser of the Week’ competition to keep everyone motivated and engaged. There were also prizes for those who hit targets, such as pink shoelaces, a beanie or even the chance to run with gold lettering on their top. Great value incentives to keep people motivated and fundraising.
Another key part of maximising fundraising for the big day was to give advice to participants on how to best make use of their official fundraising page. This included sharing tips from Enthuse on the value of personalising their fundraising page.
Mencap’s fundraisers were encouraged to add a profile picture, their story about why they were fundraising and make a self-donation to get the ball rolling. As well as thanking any donors with a comment on the page. Enthuse fundraising pages for the TCS London Marathon also enable runners to connect their Strava to show off their training progress. Adding photo or video updates was also encouraged to show friends, family and colleagues the work that was going into making event day a success.

The charity made use of Enthuse’s pre-console event registration, branded to their cause
Lastly, as Enthuse pages are the official fundraising pages, Mencap fundraisers were able to see how their efforts compared to other Mencap runners via the leaderboard and how it contributed to the charity’s overall fundraising total – as well as the grand total for the entire Marathon. This was a great way to inspire healthy competition and keep everyone motivated.
By making use of Enthuse, Mencap was able to be proactive in how they registered participants and managed their fundraising journey from application to post-event. Their excellent stewardship would then ensure some brilliant results for everyone to be proud of.
Having automatic fundraising page creation was a real time saver. It meant we didn’t have to chase up participants to set up a page. This really adds up for an event as big as the London Marathon.
Fiona James – Challenge Events Manager, Mencap
Results
Over £623,000 raised for the TCS London Marathon!
Mencap set out to better engage its participants and maximise fundraising for the 2024 TCS London Marathon by offering a strong registration process for its runners and giving them a branded fundraising page via the official platform.
The results speak for themself, with a brilliant £623,700 raised for the cause overall. This included a remarkable £22,300 raised by its top fundraising duo.
As good causes well know, getting fundraisers set up for an event is one thing – but having them actively participate is another. By registering participants through Enthuse and automatically creating a fundraising page for them, the charity was able to secure a very strong 87% activation rate. And this paid dividends.

Engaged fundraisers led to brilliant results
The charity set a sponsorship target of £2,500 for the event and ended up with an average page value of £2,780 on fundraising pages that had been personalised by the user. Meaning 111% of the target was achieved on engaged fundraising pages. A brilliant result.
As well as a great experience for fundraisers, Enthuse offers the ability for charities to ask for donors to opt in to marketing. That way, they were able to collect permission from 10% of those who donated – giving them the opportunity to build those relationships for the future. This ensured the success of the event could be continued way beyond the big day itself.
We shared Enthuse’s fundraising tips with participants so they could see the value in customising their fundraising page and get the most out of it. It helped to keep fundraisers engaged.
Fiona James – Challenge Events Manager, Mencap