As the Million Paws Walk takes its last lap, other charity fundraising events face serious challenges

The RSPCA has announced this Sunday’s Million Paws Walk will be their last. The event has been celebrated across Australia since 1994, with more than 765,000 people and their 410,000 dogs having “laced up and leashed up” to raise money for animal welfare.

Participation and fundraising have declined in recent years, with the RSPCA conceding

The community fundraising landscape has changed dramatically since 2020, with rising costs and current cost of living pressures making it increasingly hard to sustain the event.

They aren’t alone. A number of charitable events – and for-profit events such as music festivals – have been struggling to stay afloat.

Regional charity events have been particularly impacted. For example, the Cancer Council’s popular Relay for Life was once a mainstay of regional towns. But while there were 194 Relay for Life events across Australia in 2015, this year there will only be 44.

Unfortunately, our research indicates many events haven’t recovered from the triple whammy of COVID disruptions, rising costs and falling returns.

Savvy strategy amid mounting challenges

Contrary to any hasty assumptions about “wasteful” charities, our interviews with leaders from across 16 Australian charities suggest these organisations are relentlessly pragmatic.

While advocacy and community engagement are important, almost all our participants made clear that fundraising is the top priority, with success measured “purely in dollars”.

This single-minded focus is necessary to serve a charity’s core purpose.

According to one charity event operations manager, their most impactful mental health programs “won’t run unless we’re providing that money for them”. Any unsuccessful event is thus quickly overhauled or jettisoned entirely.

Charities also try to “gamify” fundraising to make it more exciting for participants. Public leaderboards, virtual badges and physical rewards can incentivise participants to fundraise. However, adopting these strategies can present technical and logistical hurdles, especially for smaller charities.

Increasing burnout and trouble reaching youth

Mass participation fundraising events are facing compounding challenges that ingenuity can’t resolve. The proportion of Australians donating to charities has steadily declined since 2011.

And although overall numbers are gradually recovering, there are still fewer people formally volunteering today than at the peak in 2018.

One charity CEO told us staff and volunteers were facing “a lot of burnout, because progress is slow, getting money in the door is hard”.

Adding to these woes are difficulties in recruiting younger people as participants and volunteers. Even reaching them can be tricky. While many charities rely on Facebook, younger people are gravitating to platforms such as TikTok. Resource-limited charities can struggle to make the leap to build new audiences.

While expressing immense gratitude, a fundraising manager at one of Australia’s biggest charities noted their volunteers “tend to skew quite older”.

A CEO of a health-based charity likewise observed difficulty in finding long-term volunteers for future event planning, as people “aren’t necessarily wanting to give that high level of commitment”.

Volunteer support is essential in making mass participation fundraisers feasible. One event fundraising coordinator told us, “There would be a lot more that would be going ahead if we had the volunteers to run them.”

Some charities partner with schools to get young people more involved. Well-known examples include the Heart Foundation’s Jump Rope for Heart and World Vision’s 40 Hour Famine. Others, such as Kids in Philanthropy, are wholly dedicated to giving children the opportunity to perform acts of service.

Rising costs and compliance hurdles

While far from begrudging small businesses, our interviewees said key suppliers, such as food vendors and stage hire, are declining, raising prices, and sometimes proving less reliable. Only occasionally do charities receive “special treatment” via discounts or other favours.

One event manager said, “Every year we have to make sacrifices and cuts.” This can impact participants’ experience, and therefore fundraising outcomes.

Our respondents spoke mostly favourably about their relationships with local councils. But some lamented councils were less willing to provide small grants or in-kind support, such as waiving permit fees, compared to the past. And unpredictable concessions can make it hard to budget and plan for the long term.

A number of interviewees highlighted traffic-related costs as a major and volatile drain on event budgets.

An event manager from a youth-focused charity bemoaned that, due to regulation changes, their traffic control quote “went from $30,000 to $45,000 a month before the event”.

Such fees can prevent events from growing to accommodate more participants, as moving locations and routes can drastically increase compliance costs.

Similarly, one respondent noted how the cost of first aid “went through the roof post-COVID”.

Another suggested popular fundraisers should be categorised as “hallmark” events in which state governments partially cover risk-management costs, such as police and ambulance services.

Of course, participants’ wellbeing is non-negotiable for charities, and any reputational damage can have severe long-term consequences.

This can even mean cancelling entire events due to risky weather conditions, with devastating impacts on fundraising outcomes.

What will we lose if events disappear?

The end of the iconic Million Paws Walk rings alarm bells for mass participation fundraising. The loss of these joyous occasions doesn’t just impact charities.

These events offer social benefits, health benefits, and a profound therapeutic effect for participants directly affected by the cause.

They are also an entry point for people to support charitable causes. For the time-poor and cash-strapped, a fun run is often more manageable than regular donations or volunteering commitments.

The Million Paws Walk will be sorely missed, but let’s hope it isn’t the first of many. Events such as the Mother’s Day Classic, MS Australia’s Gong Ride, the Mito Foundation’s Bloody Long Walk and Neuroblastoma Australia’s Run2Cure, among others, serve vital fundraising and advocacy purposes.