How we helped 24 Hours of Heroes raise $400,000 for veterans and first responders
The Challenge:
24 Hours of Heroes is an incredible grassroots campaign that began in 2021 at Nepean CrossFit.
From that single gym, it has grown into a community movement across Australia and New Zealand, with more than 40 gyms, 200 teams, and 1,300 individual participants.
As the event continued to grow in complexity, it needed a digital home that could grow with it, while developing communications journeys for multiple audiences including gym owners, team leaders, and individuals.
The hard-working volunteer 24 Hours of Heroes team invited Giving Journeys to build a brand new Raisely website for the 2026 campaign, including a complete overhaul of its structure, functionality, design, copy, content, participant journeys and merchandising.
The Solution:
We began by mapping the different ways people would interact with the website.
A gym owner considering hosting the event needed different information from a participant joining a team. A potential donor needed to understand the impact of their gift, while returning supporters needed to find essential event information quickly.
We restructured the website around these different journeys, creating clear pathways for gyms, teams, participants and donors.
We then developed a bold design that reflected the strength and camaraderie of the fitness community, while keeping the deeper purpose of the event at its heart – supporting veterans and first responders.
We simplified the event mechanics and rewrote the event copy to help visitors understand not only what the challenge involves, but why taking part matters.
Finally, we built the website in Raisely, creating a connected fundraising experience that included gym and team pages, participant fundraising pages, leaderboards, registration pathways, donations, event information and supporter resources.
The Results:
The 2026 campaign raised more than $400,000 to support veterans and first responders living with operational stress injuries.
The new website created a clearer and more connected experience for every part of the 24 Hours of Heroes community, including participating gyms, team captains, individual fundraisers and donors.
It also gave 24 Hours of Heroes a digital presence that better reflected the strength, energy and purpose of its brand.
With registrations, fundraising pages, donations, participant information and transaction data all managed within Raisely, the campaign team gained one central platform for overseeing the event and supporting its continued growth across Australia and New Zealand.
The result was more than a new website. It was a stronger digital foundation for a grassroots campaign that has become a powerful community movement.
Looking to improve your peer-to-peer event experience? Need help with maximising the effectiveness of your Raisely site? Contact us today to find out how we can help.
“We’re incredibly grateful to have partnered with Giving Journeys for our 2026 campaign. They took the time to understand what makes 24 Hours of Heroes special and created a website that truly reflected our brand, while making the experience easier for our gyms, teams and individual fundraisers. Having all our registrations, fundraising and transactions managed in one place through Raisely was a huge step forward for us. Giving Journeys felt like a genuine partner throughout the entire process, and the new website helped us deliver a campaign that raised more than $400,000 for veterans and first responders.”