New York, March 27, 2013—New York Road Runners (NYRR) today announced a new, expanded multi-year partnership with CrowdRise to increase the running organization’s charitable impact and fundraising. Starting with the 2013 ING New York City Marathon, NYRR will integrate the “social fundraising” done by charity teams, sponsors, individual racers, volunteers, and the running community through NYRR’s platform on CrowdRise.  

NYRR began its relationship with CrowdRise in 2010, seeking to expand participation in the Charity Fundraising Campaign by engaging more of the race field and giving charity partners strategic assistance with crowd-funding. Since then, the ING New York City Marathon and NYC Half official charity programs have raised more than $100 million for hundreds of different causes.

The expanded partnership will grow NYRR’s own Integrated Charity platform, designed and managed by CrowdRise, as the online fundraising platform for charities, sponsors, and other runners in connection with the ING New York City Marathon and NYC Half. This makes NYRR one of the first major race event organizers to create such a platform. 

“CrowdRise represents the future of the charitable giving programs for the ING New York City Marathon and NYC Half,” said NYRR president and CEO Mary Wittenberg. “We help charities through running to support so many great causes and organizations that need resources to rally and support their work. CrowdRise’s all-in-one platform and innovative ideas on social fundraising can help us better support our charities and runners.”

CrowdRise co-founder, actor Edward Norton added, “Inspiration and personal empowerment have always been parts of the running culture, but leveraging those qualities in millions of committed runners to create huge positive impact for other people and for great causes…that’s when running transcends individual achievement and becomes a truly enormous force for social good.  There’s not an organization in America—or the world—today that demonstrates this more impressively than NYRR.  But as amazing as the ING New York City Marathon and NYC Half have been at generating funds for charity, we see huge room for growth, and we’re very confident that CrowdRise can help NYRR hit new all-time fundraising records. We intend for 2013 to be the first of many record-breaking years.”

At the NYC Half 2013 on March 17, more than 2,400 participants ran for charities—the most in race history—and raised around $4 million in total. More than 150 charities received donations on CrowdRise. The theme of this year’s race was “More than a Run,” and the event offered runners and their families, friends, and fans ways to get involved, give back, and have fun.

About CrowdRise.com

CrowdRise is a crowd-funding platform for people and organizations to raise support for charitable causes. CrowdRise’s core principles are that people have unprecedented power to use the power of networks to leverage their personal capacity and that raising money for charity and giving back should be fun. CrowdRise’s custom-built platform and game theory, as well as the company’s proven record of designing innovative crowdfunding strategies, provide individual fundraisers, charities, and events with powerful tools to raise the most money for their causes and share compelling philanthropic stories with their personal networks. The site lets anyone turn their friends into an active base of donors for any cause and lets any organization, company, or event unlock untapped leverage out of their existing platform.

CrowdRise topped Mashable’s list of “Most Innovative Crowdfunding Platforms” and was named a “Top 25 Best Global Philanthropist” by Barron’s. CrowdRise was founded by actor and activist Edward Norton, producer Shauna Robertson, and the founders of Moosejaw, Robert and Jeffrey Wolfe. Thousands of charitable organizations, events, celebrities, and everyday donors have made CrowdRise their philanthropic base for giving back.

About NYRR

New York Road Runners was founded in 1958 when a small group of passionate runners vowed to bring running to the people. Over the past 55 years, NYRR has grown from a local running club to the world’s premier community running organization. NYRR’s mission is to empower everyone, of all ages and abilities—beginners and competitive athletes, the young and the elderly, adult professionals and underserved schoolchildren—to improve their health and well-being through the power of running and fitness.

NYRR’s races, community events, instruction and training resources, and youth programs give hundreds of thousands of people each year the motivation, know-how, and opportunity to start running and keep running for life. NYRR’s premier event, the famed ING New York City Marathon, attracts the world’s top pro runners and committed amateurs alike while also raising millions of dollars annually for charity and driving economic impact for the City. But NYRR is equally committed to the runners of tomorrow, passionately providing youth fitness programs that educate and inspire more than 150,000 kids in underserved communities in New York City, all 50 states, and around the world.

Headquartered in New York City, NYRR implements a unique nonprofit model that teams contributed and earned income to make all its efforts possible. To learn more, please visit www.nyrr.org.