How do you run a marathon for charity?

I know how to run a marathon, but how do I run my next one for a charity? It isn't a charity marathon (at least, it doesn't have any specified charities that I know of), and I already know which charity I want to donate to. So what do I do? Do I just go about fundraising, saying I'm running a marathon so donate to this charity? How does it work?


Thank you!|||Hmm, good question.





So you want to do your own personal fundraiser?





There are a couple ideas as to how to do this.





If you have finished a few marathons before, you might ask some local businesses if they would sponsor you. You would wear their T-shirt or hat or something in exchange for a fee which you would give to the charity.





You could go around and ask people to donate a small fixed amount per mile you complete, say $1/mile. This works great if it's your first mary and no one knows how far you'll go before you bonk.





On the same theme, you can organize a betting pool, where half the money goes to the winner and half goes to your charity. Winner is the one with the box that includes your finish time.





You can just ask people to donate any amount and you will put their names on the T-shirt you wear for the mary. This would be a way of keeping their contribution close to your heart as you plod along.





If you are real ambitious and organized, you could try this:


Ask a bunch of friends if they would like to do a marathon relay. Let's say that you get 4 others to do it with you. Then 4 people run 5 miles each and you finish the last 10k. You could even pass a baton. The benefit is that with more participants, you get more people asking for money. You may even get a few teams to participate. Maybe you could even get the race promoters to give you a discount as none of you would be running the whole race. (Ok, I'm dreaming!)





I hope these ideas help. Good luck and have fun at the mary!