Virgin Money Giving has raised just over £8m for the Virgin London Marathon this year, less than half of what major rival JustGiving raised via the race.

When Virgin Money announced its five-year sponsorship of the London Marathon in 2008, it declared that it wanted to increase fundraising to £250m over the period of the association – an average of £50m per year.

However, in the inaugural year of the partnership, and the first test of Virgin Money Giving – the race’s official sponsorship site – the total raised so far has reached £30.2m, including gift aid. Most of this, £22m, was raised by runners using JustGiving, which began taking online donations in 2001.

Scott Mowbray, spokesman for Virgin Money Giving, told Civil Society that the organisation was pleased with the final total, which is a significant improvement on what JustGiving alone raised last year.

“This would give an overall 35 per cent increase – approximately - in online donations year on year which is a great result for the sector,” he said.

Final figures on the amount raised for charity by Marathon runners will not be released until the autumn, at which time Mowbray suggests that there will be good news for the sector. “Last year the overall amount raised was £47m. I think there is a good chance that will be broken this year.”

“We are thrilled with the impact of Virgin Money Giving so far. To have played our part in raising the overall bar for online giving is great and we plan on building on the momentum that we have achieved since launching eight months ago,” he added.