Our activities

What we do year-round

At London Marathon Events, we're very proud of our history and our founding principles of celebrating unity and inspiring under-represented communities to participate in sport via our community engagement programme and grant programmes. We're passionate about the power of sport as a force for good and something for all. We are fully committed to making our events truly inclusive and working to make the sporting landscape more equitable.

When Chris Brasher and John Disley founded the London Marathon in 1981, one of their six aims was to raise money for sport and recreational facilities in London. Their vision was that the surplus from the London Marathon and all future events organised by London Marathon Events would go to our parent charity, The London Marathon Charitable Trust (The Trust). The Trust provides funding in London and across the UK to help people become and remain physically active, and to challenge inequality of access to physical activity. 

You can find out more about some of the grants awarded by The Trust to support Black and ethnically diverse communities below.

Alliance of Sport in Criminal Justice received a grant of £1,000,000 to support the Levelling the Playing Field Project.

The Levelling the Playing Field Project works with the Youth Justice Board to use sport as a means of improving the health and life outcomes of more than 11,200 children from ethnically diverse communities who are at risk of entering – or who are already disproportionately involved in – the Criminal Justice System in select locations in England and Wales.
Sporting Equals received a grant of £327,000 to help 1,500 ethnically diverse children and young people across 10 faith groups in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Slough get more active and playing new sports.
Cycle Sisters, a charity that aims to inspire and enable Muslim women to cycle, received a grant of £70,000 to challenge the inequality of access to physical activity for under-represented groups.

A report by Transport for London found that women, ethnically diverse communities, older people and those not in employment continue to be under-represented among cyclists in London. This grant has helped Cycle Sisters to challenge some of these inequalities by creating four new cycling groups for Muslim women in London boroughs.