Official Charity Partners
Running For a Reason
Interested in fundraising for a charity? We offer many options to support worthy organizations throughout the country. With a minimum donation of financial support (varies by charity), you’ll receive a guaranteed race entry to a Big Sur Marathon event and, in some cases, online training and/or other benefits from the charity including the camaraderie and special feeling of helping others.
Keep scrolling to learn more about our 2024 charity partners. If you are interested in signing up with one of our charities, follow the link provided for your charity of interest. If possible, look to a charity that has meaning for you, whether in memory of a family member, to support a friend, or because of your own personal experience.
Our Official 2024 Charity Partners
 American Cancer Society – DetermiNation
At the American Cancer Society, we have a vision to end cancer as we know it, for everyone. We’re improving the lives of cancer patients and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.
Register With Charity
Contact: determinationcalifornia@cancer.org
Available Entries – Marathon
Back on My Feet is a nation-wide nonprofit that uses the power of fitness, community support, and essential employment and housing resources to combat homelessness. Our unique model demonstrates that if you first restore confidence, strength and self-esteem, individuals are better equipped to tackle the road ahead. For all in need, we aim to provide: practical training and employment resources for achieving independence; an environment that promotes accountability; and a community that offers compassion and hope.
Register With Charity
Contact: Courtney.totten@backonmyfeet.org
Available Entries – Marathon
Help us build a better future for poor children in Peru: join our Big Sur Marathon team and raise funds to help us make grants to our select group of non-governmental organizations working in Peru to provide better healthcare & education for poor children.
Register With Charity
Contact: edouard@childrenofperu.org
Available Entries – Marathon
By running with Team E2C, your effort will create impact in the lives of children battling cancer and their families. Our programs provide uplifting gifts and experiences, and financial assistance to defray the immediate and uninsurable travel expenses of getting to and from cancer treatments. Be somebody’s hero today!
Register With Charity
Contact:
Available Entries – Marathon
Every Mother Counts’ mission is to make pregnancy and childbirth safe, equitable, and respectful for every mother, everywhere. Every Mother Counts was born from the recognition that not all people have the same access and privilege when it comes to maternity care. In some parts of the world, women have to travel many miles to reach a provider or clinic while pregnant or in labor, often by foot. We run as a way to raise awareness of maternal health disparities.
Register With Charity
Contact: teamemc@everymothercounts.org
Available Entries – Marathon, 11 Miler, 5K
The Girls on the Run (GOTR) program inspires 3rd-8th grade girls to be joyful, healthy, and confident by engaging them in a fun, experience-based curriculum that creatively integrates running. The program is a physical-activity based, positive youth development program designed to enhance girls’ social, psychological, and physical skills and behaviors to equip them with tools to successfully navigate life experiences and cross a 5K finish line. Join our SoleMates charity running program and run the Big Sur Marathon in support of empowering young girls!
Register With Charity
Contact: carol@gotrsv.org
Available Entries – Sold Out
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
JDRF is the leading global organization funding type 1 diabetes (T1D) research. Our strength lies in our exclusive focus and singular influence on the worldwide effort to end T1D. Mission: Improving lives today and tomorrow by accelerating life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat T1D and its complications. JDRF works every day to change the reality of this disease for millions of people—and to prevent anyone else from ever knowing it—by funding research; advocating for government support of research and new therapies; ensuring new therapies come to market and are recommended by healthcare providers; and connecting, engaging, and educating the T1D community.
Register With Charity
Contact: teamjdrf@jdrf.org
Available Entries – Marathon, 11 Miler, 12K, 5K
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society – Team In Training
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training program offers an unparalleled community for teammates to have a life changing journey while raising critical funds to find cures for blood cancers. With personalized fundraising support and one-on-one coaching, each teammate will achieve their personal best.
Register With Charity
Contact: TeamInTraining@lls.org
Available Entries – Sold Out
LUNGevity Foundation is the nation’s leading lung cancer organization focused on improving outcomes for people with lung cancer through research, education, and support for patients, survivors, and caregivers. LUNGevity Foundation is proud to be a four-star Charity Navigator organization.
Register With Charity
Contact: kginda@lungevity.org
Available Entries – Marathon, 21 Miler, 11 Miler
Minding Your Mind is a nonprofit organization that provides mental health education and suicide prevention training in schools, communities, and workplaces around the country. Our primary objective is to reach children, adolescents, teens and young adults, their parents, teachers and school administrators. Our goal is to reduce the stigma and destructive behaviors often associated with mental health issues. Minding Your Mind programs move away from crisis-based response to prevention through education.
Register With Charity
Contact: maura@mindingyourmind.org
Available Entries – Marathon
38 million Americans face hunger each day. Meanwhile, we are wasting 35% of the food we produce each year. By joining Team Move For Hunger at the Big Sur Marathon, you can support our hunger relief and food rescue programs, one mile at a time.
Register With Charity
Contact: hannah@moveforhunger.org
Available Entries – Marathon
National Brain Tumor Society’s official endurance program is called Gray Nation Endurance®️. Our official charity team will dedicate their training and fundraising to support the NBTS mission while putting meaning behind their miles for themselves, their loved ones, and to fuel a new era of progress toward a cure for all brain tumors. Submit an application with our team or email Nikki Margeson at endurance@braintumor.org for more information.
Register With Charity
Contact: endurance@braintumor.org
Available Entries – Marathon,11 Miler, 12K
Organization for Autism Research
The Organization for Autism Research’s (OAR) mission is to apply research to the challenge of autism. We strive to use science to address the social, educational, and treatment concerns of autistic people, parents, autism professionals, and caregivers. The mission of “applying” research to answer questions of daily concern to autistic people and those around them defines our goals and programs. RUN FOR AUTISM is the charity running program of OAR.
Register With Charity
Contact: run@researchautism.org
Available Entries – Marathon
Team Red, White and Blue (Team RWB)
In the military, service members push the limits of their well-being to support the mission. That selfless service posture has always been necessary because service members of every era knew they may be called to war. As they move into civilian life, many veterans carry that mission-first mindset with them, neglecting their health in the process.
We believe that veterans are America’s most resilient citizens — and it’s time for more veterans to prioritize their well-being first.
Register With Charity
Contact: john.faunce@teamrwb.org
Available Entries – Marathon, 21 Miler, 5K
The Release Recovery Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to ensuring all who are ready and willing to seek professional treatment are able. Substance use disorder and mental illness destroys the lives of too many people from underserved communities who may not have the resources for proven treatments. The Release Recovery Foundation offers scholarships to bridge the gap between what people can afford and what they need to transform their lives, regardless of race, gender, and/or sexual orientation.
Register With Charity
Contact: connect@
Available Entries – Marathon
Semper Fi & America’s Fund cares for our nation’s critically wounded, ill, and injured service members, veterans, and military families. Supporting all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, we provide one-on-one case management, connection, and lifetime support. Today. Tomorrow. Together.
Register With Charity
Contact: michelle.leonard@thefund.org
Available Entries – Marathon & 11 Miler
Team EMPOWER is the signature endurance fundraising program of Smile Train. It gives athletes all around the world the opportunity to make their race count toward providing free cleft surgery and comprehensive care to children in need. Every step, every lap, and every mile mean more than crossing the finish line — it means more smiles, new beginnings, and the opportunity for children with clefts to live full and productive lives.
Register With Charity
Contact: teamempower@smiletrain.org
Available Entries – Marathon
