Post-festive season alcohol abstinence has proven lucrative for Cancer Research UK, with the charity reporting to have raised nearly £4m from the debut year of Dryathlon.

The charity’s inaugural ‘Dryathlon’, in which fundraisers are sponsored to abstain from alcohol for all of January, attracted 35,000 participants and raised just shy of £4m – with final sponsorship due in at the end of February.

At launch, the charity said it was keen to attract a younger, male audience who would, it hoped, be drawn to the personal challenge and competitive element of the event. A  Dryathlon-branded microsite was accompanied with above-the-line advertising and a PR campaign promoting the fundraising challenge. Nearly 21,000 people ‘liked’ the campaign on Facebook.

Cancer Research UK has had a successful past in terms of mass participation events, with its Race for Life running series bringing in significant amounts of income; although there have been instances of individual races being cancelled due to insufficient demand.

While it is the first time CRUK ran Dryathlon, Alcohol Concern has run a similar event in January called ‘Dry January’. This year that event had 4,176 participants. 

 

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