What all those laps add up to.

Where the money goes

Every Relay For Life raises money for the cancer organisation in its own country. There is no global fund. Money raised in Ireland stays with the Irish Cancer Society. Money raised in South Africa stays with CANSA. Money raised in Japan stays with the Japan Cancer Society. Each organisation spends it on the things its own country needs most: research, patient support, transport to treatment, screening, prevention, and the people who answer the phone when someone has just been diagnosed.

The events directory links to every partner organisation, where each one reports what it does with the money.

Since the first lap

• In 1985 one doctor walked a track in Tacoma, Washington, for 24 hours. Today Relay For Life happens in 36 countries on six continents.
• In the United States, where Relay began, the five-year survival rate for all cancers combined reached 70 percent for people diagnosed between 2015 and 2021, according to the American Cancer Society's Cancer Facts & Figures 2026. Survival for advanced cancers has doubled since the mid-1990s. Relay is one of the ways that research was paid for.
• In 2025, representatives from 30 countries met in London for the Global Relay For Life Forum, to learn from each other's Relays.

What one Relay adds up to

A few numbers Relays have shared publicly, to show the scale a single community can reach.

• A county in the west of Ireland raised more than €163,000 at its 2025 Relay, from buckets, laps, tea mornings, raffles, and thousands of people showing up for each other.
• A town in Belgium held its first ever Relay in 2025 and raised more than €142,000 for the Belgian Foundation Against Cancer.
• A city of 27,000 people in rural Australia has held a Relay every two years since 2002. In 2025 its total passed one million dollars.
• A Relay in the southern United States came back after five years away, smaller than before, and still passed its goal by almost $10,000.

The people impact

Money is the easy thing to count. The harder thing is what happens to the people. Survivors who speak in public for the first time. Caregivers who find they are not alone. Students who learn what a cancer screening is. Towns that turn purple for a week. The Global Heroes of Hope, survivors and caregivers recognised by their cancer organisations, show what that looks like when it continues all year.

Measure it at your own Relay

Relayers who have rebuilt an event say the same thing: count people before you count money. Things worth writing down every year:

• How many survivors walked the first lap, and how many were there for the first time.
• How many caregivers walked.
• How many luminaria were lit.
• How many teams, and how many of them were new.
• How many people took a Fight Back pledge: a screening booked, a habit changed, a friend brought.
• How many young people took part.

Put last year's numbers beside this year's at the wrap-up meeting. That is the impact report most Relays never write, and the one that keeps committees going.