Supporters raise money by challenging themselves to plank every day in the month of October. Additionally, supporters can challenge themselves by gradually increasing their plank time throughout the month.
Once you’ve signed up, join the Facebook Group dedicated to this challenge and click 'Join Group'. Once you're in, you can complete a 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 Plank Every Day in October Challenge.
There is no entry fee for this challenge, but we do ask that you fundraise for Cancer Research UK through your online Giving Page. All donations to the page will automatically be sent to us.
Yes, under-18s can take part in this challenge, but we do not market to them and any third-party platform forum (such as Facebook forums) are only available to people over 18. If under-18s are taking part, their parent or guardian must consent to the child’s participation, supervise the challenge and accept responsibility for complying with the challenge rules. The child’s parent or guardian must register on the child’s behalf and if a child wants to raise money online and/or join a forum, the child’s parent or guardian must register for an online fundraising page and/or join the forum on the child’s behalf.
Participants must register as individuals, but you can then set up a team Giving Page to take on the challenge and raise money together.
Here’s how:
All your team will need to sign up to the Plank Every Day in October 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. Once you’ve created your team, you can either split up your planks across the group or each complete your planks every day in the month.
For this challenge, if you have raised £150 or more on your online Giving Page by 5 November you will be sent a medal. You'll also be sent a certificate in your completion email at the end of your challenge, and can access shareable digital badges to shout about your achievement on social media.
Medals will be shipped throughout October and then up until the week after the challenge ends to supporters who have raised £150 or more on their online Giving Page. Delivery should take between 5-10 working days.
There are people of all levels of fitness doing this challenge. The important thing is that you're doing something that challenges you. This will vary from person to person, so tailor the challenge however you like. It should be tough, but doable. However you choose to plank every day, you’ll be helping beat cancer.
While we encourage everyone to complete this challenge in October, this is a personal challenge and you can start and finish at a time that’s convenient for you. If you have difficulty completing your planks, then you can make up for it at at a later date and continue the challenge into November.
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 every day in October 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 October – the more updates the better. Supporters who regularly post about their progress raise 40% more on average.
We recommend using our planks calendar(PDF) to keep track of your progress.
Tick off each day you’ve completed your plank and track the duration of planks you’ve done so you can check your progress.
There are many different types of planks you can complete, but we advise starting with these versions:
Elbow plank
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, with your shoulders positioned directly above your elbows.
Focus on keeping your abs contracted during your plank.
Hold this position for as long as you find it comfortable – between 10 and 30 seconds is a good target to start with.
Hand plank
Start by propping yourself on your hands and toes.
Keep your legs straight and hips raised to create a straight and rigid line from head to toe, with your shoulders positioned directly above your elbows.
Focus on keeping your abs contracted during your plank.
Hold this position for as long as you find it comfortable – between 10 and 30 seconds is a good target to start with.
You can also check out this page(PDF) for further information on correctly completing a plank.
Complete this form to receive your free t-shirt in the post. Once completed, please allow 15 working days for it to arrive.
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! Sign up to the challenge If you have any further questions, 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-shirts comes at a cost to us, therefore, we ask that you keep hold of it for personal use (you could wear it in bed, at the gym or give it to a friend).
Sending out your Cancer Research UK t-shirt comes at a cost to us, so please only order one t-shirt per fundraiser to ensure as much money as possible goes towards our world-class research. We ask for everyone requesting a Cancer Research UK t-shirt that they donate something to their fundraising page.
You will receive an online Giving Page once you've registered here.
It's then easy to share the page with your friends and family to gather sponsorship for your challenge.
There is no minimum target for this challenge, but we recommend you set a reasonable target of raising around £150.
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.
The second tip is, if you're able to, kickstart 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. Don't forget to also share the link to your online Giving Page in the post.
Remember, any donation can make a difference. As little as £4 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 in the Facebook group, and we can offer further help if you want it. You've got this!
£5 could buy 100 plastic test tubes, which are the understated tools of any experiment.
£12 could buy a microscope bulb, which allow our scientists to see cells in detail, watching cancer's every move so we can beat it sooner.
£15 could 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?
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. If the donation is eligible for Gift Aid, sponsors need to fill out the sponsor form, following the guidelines at the top of the page.
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.
If you're happy to keep the page online, but want to stop taking donations, you can change the closing date of your page.
Here’s how:
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.
By default, Giving Pages stay open indefinitely unless you set a date to close your page.
If you selected a date for your fundraising page to close and would like to extend this closure date follow these instructions.
Find the Giving Page you're looking for by searching for the:
Full name of the fundraiser
Email of the fundraiser
Find your own or your friend’s online Giving Page.
If you need any further support on questions related to online Giving Pages, please contact OnlineFundraisingQueries@cancer.org.uk
For all other questions, please contact our Supporter Services team, who'd be happy to help!
Everything you need to hit your goals, including a fundraising pack, challenge calendar and shareable social badges.
