How Orbis Ireland raised 102% of its fundraising target for the Great Ethiopian Run

The story

About Orbis Ireland

A staggering 90% of all vision loss is treatable or preventable. That equates to 1 billion people in the world living with vision loss from avoidable causes. Orbis Ireland – the Irish affiliate of Orbis – builds strong and sustainable eye care systems globally that put prevention and treatment within reach for all. Orbis believes in a world where everyone can access the eye care they need to thrive.

Orbis Ireland focuses its work in Ethiopia, which has the highest rate of Trachoma globally. The charity is committed to eliminating Trachoma in the country, and a lot of its work in the region is focused on this area.

The Great Ethiopian Run is a great way to raise funds for local beneficiaries.

The challenge

Organising a week-long fundraising trip to Ethiopia

Orbis Ireland has been running its Great Ethiopian Run fundraising event since 2009, raising approximately €1 million in the process. Some 40,000 people take to the streets of Addis Ababa to participate in Africa’s biggest road race, including approximately 80 fundraisers for Orbis Ireland every year.

The run itself is just one part of the experience, however. In the days before the run, the group gets to explore Addis Ababa. Once the 10k is completed, the fundraisers travel to southern Ethiopia to visit the projects they are supporting—giving them a unique opportunity to see and appreciate the work firsthand.

Unsurprisingly, a logistics-heavy event like this requires plenty of planning, which meant the charity needed a reliable way to store participants’ details; from event registration to fundraising teams, to travel and accommodation details.

That’s where Enthuse technology came in to help power the event registration process as well as the actual fundraising.

The more approach by Enthuse

At Enthuse we love to help charities fundraise holistically. We believe that when a charity can offer its fundraisers a joined-up experience, from event sign up through to fundraising, everyone benefits. Orbis Ireland was keen to take a 360 approach so they could track and manage the entire supporter journey for the event.

Orbis Ireland made use of Enthuse’s customisable event registration solution for the Great Ethiopian Run in 2023, so it could tailor the sign up process to its specific needs for the event. This included starting the journey with the general registration fee of €250 that every participant had to pay to get things underway.

Given the logistics of the week-long stay, Orbis Ireland used the registration forms to capture passport details as well as important information like contact details and the fundraising team they were in. They were even able to customise the form to ask participants to select their flight itinerary, accommodation and merchandise requirements – as well as the start wave for the race.

The logistics behind such a unique event demanded a customisable event registration solution.

Rather than spending valuable time jumping between multiple tech platforms to manage the event, the charity was able to simply capture and store all the key details necessary to organise the event through Enthuse and give fundraisers an unforgettable experience in Ethiopia.

What’s more, the completion of the event registration triggered the automatic creation of a fundraising page for the participant – making it easy for them to get up and running. This minimised the number of links sent to fundraisers and incentivised them to start their fundraising journey right away.

Orbis Ireland also had several corporate partners on board for the event, and was able to set up fundraising teams for the likes of PwC, Airbus and Avolon on the Enthuse platform. This made it straightforward for the companies to track their collective progress but also enabled individual fundraisers to see how they compared to their colleagues on the leaderboards to help drive healthy competition.

By making use of Enthuse’s fundraising and event registration technology, the charity was able to set up and manage a brilliant fundraising event with plenty of moving parts into one streamlined campaign.

The automatic fundraising page creation is a helpful feature. It helps keep the momentum when the fundraiser is at their most excited – just after they’ve signed up.
Diane Weatherup – Development Director, Orbis Ireland

Results

Hitting 102% of the fundraising target

The Great Ethiopian Run 2023 campaign was a fantastic success, raising €102,000 through Enthuse, with a further €52,000 collected offline. A brilliant total and an impressive 102% of the initial fundraising target.

In addition, the average donation amount was a very healthy €81.46, showing that the commitment involved to take part in the event really inspired generosity from donors.

It’s also worth noting that the average page value was a fantastic €3,644. This demonstrates that the charity was able to engage its participants from the off with the automatic fundraising page creation and then keep them inspired, with features like fundraising teams and overall leaderboards.

It just goes to show that when you partner a brilliant event with the tools to maximise digital fundraising, charities can achieve standout results.

Such was the success of the event, the charity is now already planning its 2024 edition of the Great Ethiopian Run and has raised its fundraising target to €260,000.

You can learn more about the event here.

We’re pleased with the amount we’ve raised through Enthuse for our eye care projects in Ethiopia and hope to achieve an even bigger total for the 2024 trip to Ethiopia.
Diane Weatherup – Development Director, Orbis Ireland