Editorial
Sponsored events often turn on one decision that gets very little attention: how the sponsorship is collected. This article makes the case that giving every participant their own page raises significantly more than a single shared donation page or QR code, and that the difference matters more now than it used to.
The climate
Total public giving in the UK fell from £15.4 billion in 2024 to £14 billion in 2025, the first decline since 2021. The average monthly donation dropped from £72 to £65. Around six million fewer people gave to charity in 2025 than in 2016, a fall of 14 percentage points (from 69% of adults to 55%). The most common reason people give for not donating is that they cannot afford to. One in five UK adults now say this.
That isn't doom. It's the volunteer organiser's reality. Every sponsored event is now being pitched into a slightly smaller pool of willing givers, and the average gift is smaller too. Making it easy to give matters more than it did five years ago. Which means the way you collect sponsorship matters more than it used to.
The missed opportunity
Most groups put up one donation page or one QR code for the whole event and call it the sponsorship page. It isn't really a sponsorship page. It's a generic donation page with the word sponsorship written on it.
It underperforms for three reasons. The ask is impersonal: "donate to the school fun run" is much weaker than "please sponsor Jack for his fun run". It doesn't travel: participants don't share a generic event page the way they share their own. And it doesn't reach beyond the school gate: grandparents, neighbours and godparents never get asked, because no specific person is asking them.
Groups do this because it feels simpler, not because they think it's the best approach. The simpler option leaves a lot of money on the table.
Why it works
When every participant has their own page, three things change.
First, the ask becomes personal. "Please sponsor Jack for his fun run" is a specific person doing a specific thing for a specific reason. Supporters give to people, not to general pots. Anyone who has ignored a generic charity envelope and then sponsored their colleague's nephew without thinking has felt this in themselves.
Second, the ask travels. Jack's parents share his page in the family group chat. The grandparents sponsor. Someone posts it on Facebook. A colleague sees it and sponsors. A single page can quietly reach people the event organisers will never meet, and the supporters most willing to give to Jack are often not at the school gate.
Third, the maths becomes visible. When every participant has a page, the running total accumulates in public. Participants check it. Parents check it. That visibility creates a small but real social pressure that paper forms and shared donation pages don't. Pages with a few sponsorships on them attract more sponsorships.
None of this is theoretical. It is the difference between asking once and being shared a hundred times.
The evidence
The argument isn't only intuitive. There is solid evidence behind it.
Researchers at the University of Bristol and the University of Warwick analysed data from more than 416,000 UK online fundraising pages.
The typical individual fundraising page raises £245 from 14 donations. The top 10% of pages raise £1,343 or more.
That baseline is meaningful on its own. Multiply £245 by even half the participants in a primary school sponsored event and the total is far beyond what a single shared donation page can match.
The second piece of evidence is about effort.
Fundraisers who personalise their pages with photos and stories raise significantly more than those who don't. Fundraisers who set an explicit target raise on average 125% more than those who don't.
The value of individual pages compounds when participants put a small amount of effort in. A photo, a sentence about why they're taking part, a target. Small things, measurable effect.
Even setting research aside, there is a more practical reason. People now expect to give the way they pay.
How people pay now
Because the way people give has changed.
According to UK Finance, UK Payment Markets 2025, contactless payments now make up 77% of debit card transactions in the UK. Cash accounts for less than 10% of all UK payments in 2024, down from 58% in 2010. About 30% of UK adults live "largely cashless lives", using cash once a month or less. For the first time, more than half of UK adults use mobile contactless payments at least monthly.
This isn't a moral argument about cash versus card. It's a practical one. Asking for cash sponsorship in 2026 is asking people to use a payment method they don't carry. A paper sponsorship form going home in a school bag asks for a behaviour change before the donation has even happened: find cash, remember to send it back in, find the form again. A sponsorship link works with the way people already pay.
The practical takeaway
Three principles, if nothing else.
The climate for fundraising is harder than it was. Total giving is down, the average gift is smaller, and the people you're asking are giving in different ways from how they gave a decade ago. This is the lever volunteer-led groups have most control over. It is also the lever with the biggest measurable upside.
For the full planning guide, see how to organise a sponsored event.
Set up an event page in an evening. Give every participant their own sponsorship link, and let the totals build. Free to set up. No paper forms, no chasing cash.
