Since it was founded in 1980, the London Marathon Charitable Trust has donated millions of pounds to support a variety of sports projects throughout London’s boroughs and beyond, including an array of grassroots cycling schemes.

London Marathon is delighted to confirm that it will continue to support cycling in the capital by adding all of its profits from the Prudential RideLondon festival of cycling to the London Marathon Charitable Trust fund. For more than 30 years, these generous funds have helped a diverse range of cycling schemes reach out to the wider community.

In 2002, the London Marathon Charitable Trust awarded £20,000 to British Cycling for the redevelopment of the Hillingdon Cycle Circuit, and in 2005 it donated £37,961 to Herne Hill Velodrome – the cycling venue for the capital’s Olympic Games back in 1948.

More recently, the London Marathon Charitable Trust funded recumbent cycles at four adventure playgrounds in Hackney, pledged £135,000 to create BMX tracks in Lambeth’s Norwood Park and Burgess Park in south east London, and awarded £60,000 to build a cycle circuit at Acacia Road in Merton.

Events like Prudential RideLondon allow us to generate money for good causes twice over. The entry fees from participants in the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100? The television and sponsorship money? The money from the event expo? They all go into the coffers, and help us to pay for organising the event.

When the costs of putting on events like Prudential RideLondon and the Virgin London Marathon are met, we put everything that’s left into the Charitable Trust. How much remains to be handed out? Enough to enable us to give £5m to various charities across the capital, reaching out to 29 of its 33 boroughs, last year alone. It has provided everything from sports halls to bowling mats, from changing rooms to velodrome floodlights.
 
The President of the Trust’s board of directors, John Disley – co-founder of the London Marathon with Chris Brasher – remains committed to the ambitions that first drove him to make the dream of a London Marathon a reality. “We wanted it to make a lasting contribution to sport in London, and the country more widely, not just at the elite end but by providing more opportunities for recreation and healthy activity among the population at large.”

So by taking part in events like Prudential RideLondon, you begin to help your community and your sport before you’ve done an ounce of training, or sought a single sponsor. It’s a unique arrangement, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you.

All the London Marathon Ltd share of the profits will go to the London Marathon Charitable Trust.  All bequest income from the registration system will go to the London Marathon Charitable Trust.