(Photo courtesy of Bank of America)

There’s a big difference between running a marathon and achieving a high jump – unless one is talking to the Boston Athletic Association, organizers of the Boston Marathon. The final donation tally leapt from $40.2 million in 2023 to $71.9 million for this year’s event.

Several factors contributed to the increased revenue. The number of runners participating in the Official Charity Program rose from 2,700 to just more than 3,000, or almost 10% of the total field, the Boston Athletic Association’s Director of Development Nicole Juni told The NonProfit Times. This year’s Official Charity Program included 168 participating organizations — the entities that choose participating runners — up from 163 a year ago.

The increase was in part due to a new arrangement with Bank of America, which amplified the event’s fundraising reach. In turn, that caused program fundraising to rise from $40.2 million to $45.7 million. That total alone represented a new fundraising record, breaking last year’s record-setting amount.

“Bank of America has a long history in Boston, and for many years we have admired the impact the Boston Marathon has had on the community,” Bank of America spokesperson Andy Aldridge told The NonProfit Times. “This year, we are proud to celebrate our first year as the presenting sponsor, and look forward to working with the BAA to bringing the Boston Marathon’s impact and reach to new heights — both on a national and global scale — in the years ahead.”

While 2024’s $45.7 million is more than respectable, it is not the $71.9 million total claimed by the Boston Athletic Association. The total was boosted by first-time finisher Rob Hale Jr., co-founder and CEO of Granite Telecommunications and co-owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team. Hale had trained to participate in 2022, but a stress fracture sustained during his training required him to withdraw, according to The Boston Globe.

This year, in honor of completing the entire 26.2-mile course, Hale donated $26.2 million to 72 local charities, with recipients including the Boston Public Library, Fenway Health and the Newton Fire Department. The cumulative total raised by the event since the Official Charity Program was founded in 1989, including Hale’s donation, jumped to more than $550 million. As Juni was careful to note, 100% of donations raised go to the designated nonprofits.

Aside from the largesse of one donor, most of the funds were from pledges attributed to individual marathon participants. According to Juni, the number of individual donations made through the official fundraising platform GivenGain dropped from 136,950 in 2023 to 130,268 in 2024. But GivenGain also tracks offline donations made directly to individual nonprofits through checks, wire transfers, donor-advised funds and corporate matching gifts, among other vehicles.

There might have been fewer donations, but the amounts were larger. Even with the increase in total runners, average aggregated donations per runner jumped from more than $12,000 in 2023 to $13,000 in 2024, Juni said. The average donor kicked in $146, up from $143 in 2023, according to GivenGain data.

The fundraising total wasn’t the only key result of the day, of course: Ethiopia’s Sisay Lemma finished first in the men’s category with a time of 2:06:17, and Hellen Obiri of Kenya finished first in the women’s category with a time of 2:22:37.

Funder Hale, who ran with three other representatives from Granite Communication as well as a participant from Boston’ Children’s Hospital, finished with a time of 5:15.

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Source From Non Profit Times