Supporters raise money for Cancer Research UK by planking every day in the month of April and can challenge themselves by gradually increasing their plank time as the month goes on.
Once you have signed up, join the Facebook group dedicated to this click 'Join Group'. Once you're in, you can complete this form to get your free Cancer Research UK t-shirt, get tips for completing your planks, be inspired by other fundraisers, and find out anything you want to know about the challenge.
Yes! If you don’t have Facebook, you can set up a Cancer Research UK online Giving Page and collect sponsorship for your 30 Day Plank Challenge.
There is no entry fee for this challenge. Participants are asked to collect funds for Cancer Research UK through your online Giving Page. This money will automatically be sent to us once paid onto your page.
While we encourage everyone to complete this challenge in April, this is a personal challenge and you can start and finish at a time that’s convenient for you. If you can’t complete your plank on any given day, then you can make up for it at a later date and continue the challenge into May.
Don’t worry! You can make up your planks on another day or extend your challenge into the following month if needed. Complete the challenge in a way that suits you.
The only thing that matters is that you try your best to complete as much of the challenge as you can. Whether that’s completing a plank a day in April or not, the money you raise will help us to keep funding life-saving research. Whatever you manage to achieve, we can’t thank you enough.
We trust you! You don’t need to provide evidence that you’ve completed the challenge to us, but your friends and family will want some updates. Make sure you keep them posted on your progress and share videos, photos and your online Giving Page throughout April – the more updates the better. Supporters who regularly post about their progress raise 40% more on average.
We recommend using our plank calendar(PDF, 59.3 KB) to keep track of your progress.
Tick off each day you’ve completed your plank and track the number of planks you’ve done so you can see your total.
Lie on your front propped up on your forearms and toes. Keep your legs straight and hips raised to create a straight and rigid line from head to toe. Your shoulders should be directly above your elbows. Focus on keeping your abs contracted during the exercise. Hold this position for 5 to 10 seconds and repeat 8 to 10 times.
Don't allow your lower back to sink during the exercise.
You should be looking at the floor.
Prop yourself on hands and toes. Keep your legs straight and hips raised to create a straight and rigid line from head to toe. Your shoulders should be directly above your elbows. Focus on keeping your abs contracted during the exercise. Hold this position for 5 to 10 seconds and repeat 8 to 10 times.
Don't allow your lower back to sink during the exercise.
You should be looking at the floor.
Physiotherapy strength exercise guide(PDF)
Complete this form to receive your free Cancer Research UK t-shirt in the post. Once completed, please allow 10 working days for your Cancer Research UK t-shirt to arrive.
If you haven’t received your Cancer Research UK t-shirt after this time, please contact supporter.services@cancer.org.uk.
When filling out your sign-up form, select ‘no’ where it asks if you’d like to receive a Cancer Research UK t-shirt. You’ll still receive an online Giving Page, be able to join the challenge group and take part!
If you have any further questions, please email supporter.services@cancer.org.uk or call 0300 1231022 (lines open 8am–8pm, Monday to Friday and 9am–5pm at weekends)
Unfortunately, returning Cancer Research UK t-shirt comes at a cost to us, therefore, we ask that you keep hold of it for personal use (for example bed, gym, give to a friend, etc).
Sending out your Cancer Research UK t-shirt comes at a cost to Cancer Research UK so please only order one Cancer Research UK t-shirt per fundraiser to ensure as much money goes towards our life-saving research as possible. We ask for everyone requesting a CRUK T-shirt that they donate something to their fundraising page.
Yes, under 18s can take part in this challenge, but we do not market to them and any third-party platform forum (e.g. a Facebook group ) is only available to over 18s. If under 18s are taking part, their parent/guardian must consent to the child’s participation, supervise the challenge, and accept responsibility for complying with the challenge rules. Currently we are unable to accept registrations for a child, so the child’s parent/guardian have to register on the child’s behalf. Similarly, if a child wants to raise money online and/or join a forum, the child’s parent/guardian must register for an online fundraising page and/or join the forum on the child’s behalf.
Participants must register as individuals but can take on the challenge in a team. You can split the activity up between a group or you can all complete a plank a day across the month. To raise money together, you can set up a Team Giving Page once you’ve registered and received your individual pages. To do this follow the steps below.
All your team will need to sign up to the 30 Day Plank Challenge so you each have your own online Giving Page.
Once everyone has signed up, log into your account.
Hit the 'Create new team' button and follow the instructions.
Once you've created your team, you can send the team page URL to friends and family so they can join too!
Find more information about setting up a team
You’ll be sent a certificate in your completion email at the end of your challenge. You can also access downloadable digital badges to shout about your achievement on social media. Unfortunately, medals would cost us a significant amount, so we won’t be sending these out so we can spend more on our life-saving work.
Using our Online Fundraising Platform is the easiest way to raise money. You will receive an online Giving Page once you’ve registered here:
https://activities.cancerresearchuk.org/30-day-plank-challenge
You can then share the page with your friends and family to gather sponsorship for your challenge.
If you're happy to keep the page online, but want to stop taking donations, you can change the closing date of your page.
You'll need to go to your Giving Page (make sure you're logged in) and scroll down and select ‘Page settings’.
Then select ‘Page closure date’. You can choose to close the page now or set a future date to close your page.
Tap ‘Save’ for the changes to come into effect. People can still view a closed page but can’t donate to it.
You can reopen a closed page by selecting ‘Keep your page open indefinitely’.
Please note, you don't need to close your page for the money you have raised to transfer to Cancer Research UK. This happens automatically when each donation is made.
If you'd like to take the page off the site completely, you can email us at OnlineFundraisingQueries@cancer.org.uk and we'll get that sorted for you.
If you'd like to extend the closing date of your fundraising page, you can do this by editing your page: Help with my Cancer Research UK fundraising page
If you need any further support with this please contact our Supporter Services team, who'd be happy to help!
We don’t set a fundraising target for participants, but we recommend that supporters set themselves a reasonable target of raising £150 or more.
This challenge is a fundraising initiative specifically developed by Cancer Research UK, and therefore all fundraising must go solely to the charity.
The first tip is to log in to your page and take a few minutes to personalise it. You can add a photo, update the 'My Story' section to share why raising funds for this cause is important to you.
Second tip is, if you're able to, kick-start the fundraising by adding your own donation to your Online giving page. It can often help to get things going - it's a bit like making sure your friends aren't the first guests at a party.
And the third and final tip is to share a post on your social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, anything you use) to tell people about your challenge - and make sure to share the link to your Online giving page in the post.
Remember, any donation can make a difference. As little as £3 could buy a pair of safety goggles to keep our scientists safe while they conduct their cutting-edge experiments.
Let us know how you get on by posting on the group, and we can offer further help if you want it. You've got this!
£5 can fund a lab technician for over 30 minutes, ensuring researchers are equipped with everything they need to beat cancer.
£10 can buy 250 plastic test tubes to help carry out cancer-fighting experiments.
£15 can buy agarose gel, which is a vital component for a technique that scientists use to measure the length of pieces of DNA.
£20 could buy antibiotics to keep the cells studied by our scientists free from infections.
Yes absolutely! You can raise your fundraising target on your online Giving Page at any time. Supporters who increase their fundraising target raise an average of 51% more than those who don’t, so why not head over to your page and raise yours!
We have plenty of fundraising materials and ideas to help you raise life-saving donations. Visit our fundraising hub for everything you need for your challenge.
Gift Aid is a tax relief allowing UK charities to reclaim an extra 25% on every eligible donation made by a UK taxpayer. This means Cancer Research UK can claim an extra 25p for every £1 donated, without it costing you or your sponsors an extra penny. For a donation to be eligible for Gift Aid, sponsors need to fill out the sponsorship form following the instructions at the top of the page.
Email: supporter.services@cancer.org.uk
Grab your fundraising pack, challenge calendar, shareable badges and more to help you reach your fundraising goals.
