Giving back adds significance and meaning to your swimming
Last Saturday, I went to the annual Aspire Channel Swimmers’ dinner – a celebration of (and for) swimmers who have raised nearly £350,000 in 2025 for Aspire, the spinal injuries charity. Most of this comes from English Channel relays. Other swims include Solent crossings and swims from Sealand and Red Sands Forts.
Raising funds for charity through swimming is a great way to give back. It can be a fantastic motivator for your swimming too – both in your training and for the challenge itself. Swimmers neither want to let down the people who supported them nor those who will benefit from the funds.
The most successful fundraisers possibly put more time into their fundraising than they do their training, and are rightly proud of their fundraising success.
Other ways
But fundraising through swimming isn’t for everyone. If you already do a lot of swimming and would have undertaken the challenge anyway, regardless of the charity, then it can feel awkward asking for money. Or you might just be uncomfortable about fundraising.
And that’s fine. There are other ways to give back.
For example, Aspire has built a community around its Channel swimming and fundraising. Past swimmers become volunteers, using their experience to support the current cohort of teams. Some become boat leaders. This involves accompanying the team across the Channel, which almost certainly means a night without sleep and a significant chance of seasickness. Others help out at assessment day – ensuring potential swimmers have both the necessary swimming ability and fundraising skills.
Beyond charities, there are plenty of other ways to give back to or through swimming. Clubs need people to run them, events need volunteers, new swimmers need advice and mentors, and swimming groups need cake.
Finding balance
Giving back is part of being a Renaissance Swimmer (see Chapter 15 of the course). It’s something that can add meaning and satisfaction to your swimming. But obviously, we all have different demands on our time. If giving back becomes a burden or something you resent, then that’s perhaps a signal to scale back. But even small gestures make a difference – both to you and the people that benefit from them.
Perhaps as a quick challenge this week, you could do a 5-minute “audit” of ways you give back to swimming. Coaching, volunteering, mentoring, towel holding, cheering others on? You might find it’s more than you think and be inspired to do a little more or try something else.
If you have a giving back story to share, please let me know.
Back to Aspire
Finally, it wouldn’t feel right to end this post without noting that much of the credit for Aspire’s Channel Swimming fundraising success needs to go to Andrew Ogierman, who leads the open water swimming fundraising at the charity. Of course, it is his job, but he clearly goes above and beyond – from spending weekends on the beach at Dover, to answering countless emails from prospective or worried swimmers.
People like Andrew remind us that swimming is more than a sport. It’s a community. And when we give back, we help that community thrive.
