Frequently asked questions

Samarathon is a month-long fundraising virtual marathon event for Samaritans. Participants are challenged to walk, jog or run a marathon distance, 26.2 miles, over the 31 days in July. When and where you chose to do it is completely up to you!

The challenge officially starts on Thursday 1 July 2021 and will end on Saturday 31 July 2021. 

Sign up now, start your training and fundraising, and encourage others to join the challenge too

Nope, this event is FREE to anyone to take part! It would be amazing if you took the opportunity to help raise money for Samaritans. All the money you raise will help us reach more people who need our support.

We appreciate that it’s an uncertain time right now. Your health, and that of your loved ones, is the top priority. We are closely monitoring the coronavirus situation and following advice from Public Health England and Health Protection Scotland.

Now more than ever, getting out for some exercise is crucial for everyone’s mental wellbeing and Samarathon is the perfect goal.

Samarathon is a personal challenge that you can complete by yourself, in your own time throughout July, but it's also the perfect opportunity to connect with others. Sign up as a team and head outside with members of your household, or join up virtually with family, friends or work mates. Track your mileage and your fundraising progress on your Samarathon fundraising page and share with everyone you know so they can support your achievements.

Your participation comes at an unprecedented time, so your support will help us be there for everyone who needs someone to listen.

JustGiving is an online fundraising platform, with a difference – it makes it easy for you to record the miles you cover and fundraise! Once you sign up for Samarathon, a JustGiving fundraising page will automatically be set up for you.

You can then personalise your page and share with friends and family to let them know what an incredible challenge you are taking on for Samaritans.

At the end of the challenge, any sponsorship money received via your online page will come straight to Samaritans, saving time and effort for you!

Yes, absolutely! Once you have signed up and created your personal JustGiving page, you can then create a Samarathon team page too.

When your friends, family or colleagues sign up to take part in Samarathon, they can join your team during the registration process. For more information about how to set up your Samarathon team online, please head here. Don't forget, you need to have registered to take part in Samarathon before you can join or create a team.

No. You can take part if you’re 10 or 110! But, if you’re under 16 you will need a parent or guardian to sign you up to Samarathon or email events@samaritans.org with permission from your parent or guardian.

Yes, you can track your distance using Strava and link it to your JustGiving page to ensure your mileage is automatically recorded and added to your page.

If you don’t use this app (or forget to use it while you’re out and about!) you can manually add the mileage to your page later on. To add miles, make sure you're logged in and on your fundraising page. Open up a window where you can log all the details of your fitness activity and add it to your fundraising page feed. It will also pull through on your page totaliser once the event month begins.

Absolutely not! This is your marathon, so you can do it any which way you like. If you want to jog or walk it, that’s just fine. And if you’re a wheelchair user, you can still complete the full 26.2 mile distance in a way that is a challenge for you.

If you have taken part before, we would love to see you take part again. However, you may want to change it up. You could add hills into each run, challenge your friends, add landmarks to your route or make it extra clever by adding fancy dress, or 26 different routes for your 26.2 miles! This is your challenge, so you can do it your own way.

The goal is to cover 26.2 miles in a month on foot or in a wheelchair, but if you would prefer to do multiple marathons on your bike or even on horseback, well this is your challenge, we’re happy for you to do it your way!

Search for your friend or family member in the search bar on our Samarathon website homepage!

Once you have set up a team, you’re automatically made the Team Leader, which means you can invite people to join. On your page you will be able to invite whoever you want (if they have their own page set up).

You can keep going or sit back and celebrate your success! If you have reached your 26.2 miles target, you can do more than a marathon, and set a new fundraising target.

Please check out our fundraising help page, which has some great downloadable images to help you promote your challenge. If there is anything you’d like that isn’t downloadable please email samarathon@samaritans.org.

If you have any questions or queries, please email samarathon@samaritans.org.

When you have finished your challenge, let everyone who has sponsored you know that you’ve completed your marathon, and send them a big ‘Thank You’ for their support.  

Check out the milestone badges that you can download and add to your fundraising page, or to social media posts to celebrate.

Join our Samarathon group on Facebook and keep up to date with all the latest running and walking chat! Simply search ‘Samarathon Facebook group’ in Facebook and request to join. Soon you’ll be sharing stories with our other participants in this year’s challenge!

To setup a JustGiving page there is no cost involved – it’s completely free! The only cost of using the platform for charities is a small 1.9% per transaction processing fee plus £0.20 payment processing fees and 5% Gift Aid – this will be charged on every donation made to your page. If the donation is made in another currency, then the processing fee is 2.9% + £0.20.

We only ask that you raise as much as you’re able. However, if you raise £150 or more, not only could that fund over 30 calls for help, or support the cost of training three Samaritans volunteers for a year, but we’ll also enter you into our free prize draw to win some selected sporting goodies! Please note, the suggested target is for individuals taking part – your team target is separate and can be as big and as bold as you want it to be!

Gift Aid is a government run scheme that allows charities to reclaim some of the tax that you have already paid to HMRC. Currently, this is equal to 25p for every £1 that you give. 

Gift Aid does not cost you any extra and can make your donation worth an extra 25% to us, so it is a fantastic way of ensuring your donations go as far as they possibly can

When you register to take part in Samarathon, an online fundraising page is automatically created for you. There are a few key things you can do to make the most of your fundraising page, including: 

• Uploading a photo: This is a great way of personalising your page. You can upload more than one, so why not add photos as way of telling your fundraising story and sharing your progress. 
• Setting a target: Doing this is a such a great motivator for yourself. It will also encourage others to help you reach your goal and who knows – you might even beat it! 
• Sharing your story: Tell your supporters why you are taking part in Samarathon and what a difference their donations will make to Samaritans, and to the people we support 
• Promoting your page: Email a page link to your friends/family and if you’re online, share it on social media. This is such a great way to raise awareness of your challenges and kick start your fundraising. 
• Keeping everyone updated: Try to share regular updates and progress pics on your page. Your supporters will enjoy sharing your journey with you and want to know how you’re getting on. 
  

For more help, take a look at our fundraising tips.

• Pay in online: https://www.samaritans.org/donate/pay-in.
• Pay in by cheque: Send a cheque made payable to Samaritans to:
  Samaritans, The Upper Mill, Kingston Road, Ewell, KT17 2AF. Remember to include your name and address details so we can thank you. 
• Pay in by BACS: Contact us directly and we will provide you with our bank details. You'll be given a unique reference, so we can track your donation. 
• Pay by phone: To make a donation over the phone, call our Supporter Care team on 03709 00 00 32. 

As a charity, our ambition is to ensure fewer people die by suicide. Every day, Samaritans volunteers respond to around 10,000 calls for help and your fundraising will help us answer more of these calls. 

Together the 3,600 people who took part in Samarathon 2020 helped raise more than £598,000. This year we’re hoping to raise over £880,000 and with your help, we’ll do it! 

For every £1 donated to Samaritans, 85p goes on our services and just 15p is invested in raising the next £1. 

All JustGiving fundraising pages will be closing on the 31st August. After this date, you will no longer be able to receive any more donations on your page, but you can still submit offline donations.

Yes, you can! Please note that because this challenge was set up in the UK, your fundraising page will display your fundraising total in British pounds, but donations from outside of the UK will still be processed as normal. 

Yes, there is! Head to the Samarathon Facebook Group and chat with other participants about the challenge.

Three is working in partnership with Samaritans, and is the charity’s first official sponsor of Samarathon. As official sponsor of Samarathon, Three is promoting the month-long fundraising event among its 300 stores and 4,300 employees to grow Samarathon and raise vital funds and inspire more people to take on the challenge.

Find out more here

Yes, you can! When you register, simply let us know which Samaritans branch you volunteer with/are a supporter of (there will be a drop-down list of branch names to pick from) and at the end of the challenge we will transfer all the money you raise (minus JustGiving's transaction fees) directly to the branch bank account.     

We are unable to change where the funds are allocated once you have completed your registration. 

Whether you chose to fundraise for a local branch or the whole of Samaritans, all the money raised supports Samaritans to be there for anyone struggling to cope, right across the UK and Republic of Ireland.

The funds will be transferred in one lump sum to each branch, including Gift Aid but minus JustGiving transaction fees, within two months of the JustGiving pages closing. Pages will close in August. Branch Directors and/or treasurers will be notified of the total raised for their branch in advance of the payment. Please bear with us, as this is a manual process.

Yes, we’d love to see lots of Samaritans branches represented in 2021!

When you register for Samarathon, you will see a question in the registration form that asks if you are fundraising as part of a Samaritans branch. If you are, select ‘Yes’ and a drop-down menu of our branches will appear for you to select your branch. Upon completing registration, you’ll see that your fundraising page will be linked to your branch page – there’ll be a button to the left of your fundraising page that you can click to view the branch you’ve joined. Here, you’ll see your branch leaderboards and totalisers.

The best way is to share your fundraising page with volunteers and add an email banner on your email signature. Head to the Brand Centre for all branch Samarathon resources.