{"id":3590,"date":"2016-08-05T13:11:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T07:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goheritagerun.com\/?p=3590"},"modified":"2017-03-01T17:32:20","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T12:02:20","slug":"why-pay-to-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goheritagerun.com\/why-pay-to-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Should I Pay to Run?"},"content":{"rendered":"

TL;DR Marathons don’t make money in India. <\/strong><\/p>\n

We lost money on 4 of 6 Go Heritage Runs (GHR) last year – and some of our runs this year will turn a loss as well. This is when our entire team is taking subsistence salaries and working out of a team member’s home (aka no office cost). Most big marathons would not make money if all the volunteer effort was actually paid for – trust me I helped organize a city marathon for 3 years.\u00a0As a runner, you must demand value for the money you pay and this article is not to desist you from that. Rather, it merely intends to expand your perspective. Also, value and cost are two very different things which you should distinguish between as I elaborate here.<\/p>\n

So why organize runs if you do not make money?<\/h2>\n

GHR fits in with the larger plan of Making Heritage Fun, which is the objective of GoUNESCO<\/a>, of which we are a spin-off. GHR helps fund all of GoUNESCO activities across the world. The runs have helped us not just grow our other programs but also initiate new ones. While we had one internship program and just the India travel challenge<\/a>\u00a0in 2014\u00a0(when the first test run was organized in Hampi), we now have 3 different internship programs in which nearly 250 students are participating and we launched a new travel challenge in theUK this year. We were also able to start a new initiative last year (#makeheritagefun<\/a>) in which thousands of people from over 100 cities across the world have participated.<\/p>\n