London Marathon
The London Marathon has a high return on investment for Whisper. The marathon places can sometimes be advertised by word of mouth, otherwise a Facebook ad costing around £10 and targeted at runners should find at least one candidate within 24 hours.
Unless supporters request places in the virtual London Marathon event, it’s not worth buying charity places speculatively for the virtual event.
Golden Bonds
Section titled “Golden Bonds”Most charity places in the London Marathon are allocated through the Golden Bond (4 places every year, previously 5 places) and Silver Bond (1 place every year) programmes. Whisper has 3 Golden Bonds (12 places) for 2026-29 with an option to renew for a further 4 years 2030-2033, after which Whisper would have to reapply.
Runner registration
Section titled “Runner registration”There’s an online runner registration console and the runner must be fully registered by the registration deadline, typically 5pm on the first Friday in February.
The registration is a two-stage process; the charity enters the runner’s email and the runner then receives an e-mail with instructions to complete the registration.
Up to the registration deadline, the runner can be changed in the registration console. After the registration deadline, the runner can’t be changed but they can still be withdrawn by the charity (if for example they haven’t done any fundraising) by informing the organisers via e-mail, until about 10 days before the race, in which case the place will be rolled over to the following year, and Whisper doesn’t have to use the same runner. Likewise if the runner falls ill after registration and can’t run, the place can be rolled over to the following year. For the place to be rolled over, the runner mustn’t cross the starting line.
Contact details
Section titled “Contact details”The London Marathon team can be contacted on 020 7902 0200 or charities@londonmarathonevents.co.uk.
Event history
Section titled “Event history”Charity ballot
Section titled “Charity ballot”In previous years we used to obtain places through the charity ballot which takes place in May the year before the race. 500 places are made available through the ballot. As a holder of Golden Bonds, Whisper is not currently eligible for the ballot.
The chances of obtaining a place in the charity ballot are unknown but may be around 50%. Being allocated a place makes you ineligible for the following year, so Whisper applied every second year.
Whisper was awarded a place in the 2016 London Marathon through the charity ballot. Our runner raised a total of £4000 for Whisper from:
- her sponsorship page
- a public collection at Balham tube station
- a dinner with a presentation from a Whisper trustee
- a small change collection at the runner’s workplace
- a foreign note and coin collection at the runner’s workplace
Our runner in 2019 raised £2300 on her sponsorship page.
Our runner in 2021 raised around £1300 on his sponsorship page.
Our runner in 2022 raised £1138 on his sponsorship page; we also had a runner in the Virtual London Marathon who raised around £600.