We recently caught up with Patrick McCrann, leader of the “Run for Haiti” project.  It’s a team of athletes working together to raise money online for Haiti disaster relief efforts, and they’ve raised over $29,000 in just 4 days.

How did they do it? Not only did Patrick raise money online; he challenged his personal network of athletes and friends to each raise $2500 and run a mile for every $100 raised. You can see the route Patrick ran, including a pit stop outside the door of the Partners In Health offices in Boston, which he posted to the report on his blog.

FirstGiving: How did you get interested in running?

Patrick: I’ve always been fairly active, and running is one of the easiest ways to be active.  From there I got into triathlons and endurance work.

FirstGiving: Why did you decide to raise money for Partners in Health?

Patrick: I have a background in international development and experience working as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Typically, after a disaster hits, the problem is not that people aren’t giving; the problem is with distribution.  Partners in Health has invested a lot in local capacity building over the past twenty years, so it was a “no-brainer” in some ways. They are working on the ground, using the expertise of local people to ensure that aid is reaching people who need it.

FirstGiving: What is your best training tip?

Patrick: Training should be fun and challenging.  Often people feel like they need to start climbing a ladder and get to the point where they can do an Ironman, for example.  I manage an online community of athletes called Endurance Nation, and we try to keep things engaging by offering monthly challenges and activities that involve family members and setting personal goals around events. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to challenge our bodies in this way, so it’s important to have fun.  Another tip is to focus on consistency.  When you focus on the long-term, the better you’ll be.

FirstGiving: What is your best fundraising tip?

Patrick: The biggest impact comes from linking your cause to something you’re passionate about. Then the fundraising resonates because it becomes an important part of who you are and what is important to you; then connecting to the cause is very simple. In the case of raising money for Partners in Health, it also helped that the cause was part of a current event – it was definitely on peoples’ minds.

FirstGiving: What kind of impact do you think this experience will have on your life going forward?

Patrick: It has been a powerful lesson for me to see how many people responded to giving and raising money online.  I never expected that the response from my friends would be so great.  In the future, I might do more to challenge the community and maybe try to create a more national initiative. FirstGiving makes the process of raising money online so easy – it takes about four minutes to set up a page.  There’s almost no reason not to do it!

FirstGiving: In addition to donating to your FirstGiving page or taking up your challenge, how have people supported you?

Patrick: There has been quite a bit of local PR and buzz, which helped to get the word out about the event. The downside is that “the event” isn’t over; there’s still a great opportunity to give.  And I’m just a guy who put up a webpage; lots of other people can do that, too. People in my network supported my efforts by taking on the challenge to raise money online as well.  Sometimes, they surprised themselves. My friend Fred, for example, raised over $4,000.  I could have asked him to give a $100 donation to my page, but instead he reached out to his friends and had a much greater impact than he could have had on his own.

FirstGiving: That must have been very encouraging to see.  One more question–what can FirstGiving do to help you continue to be successful in raising money online in the future?

Patrick: I would love to see an iPhone app. And more opportunities for on-the-spot networking around fundraising would be helpful. Sometimes it’s difficult for people to translate their passion about a cause into a real action, and FirstGiving could help facilitate that translation by making it even easier to create a page for a particular cause or event. Anyone can join a cause on Facebook, but when you are raising money for a cause, it’s a much more serious commitment.

FirstGiving: Thank you, Patrick, well said. We also love this video you made to thank everyone who participated in the Run for Haiti:

To support Patrick, visit his FirstGiving page, or join the Run for Haiti yourself.