FAQs

The number of steps represents the number of children in the UK living with life-limiting conditions. There are 99,000 children in the UK living with life-limiting conditions - every day their families are pushed to their limits. In this challenge we will push ourselves to our limits, to ensure that the hospices that support these children are not pushed to theirs.

Everywhere! We will have participants taking part throughout the week across the UK and we have designed this challenge so you can achieve your steps as part of your daily life – at work, at home, at the shops, walking the dog – anywhere you like!

Please click on the sign up button and our easy registration process will take you through all of the steps needed.

If you are having trouble registering, please do get in touch with us and someone on the team will be more than happy to help. 

It’s free to register and participate in the 99,000 Steps Challenge. Just sign up and start walking from 17 June to raise funds for children's hospice services across the UK.

The easiest way to create a team is to choose a team captain who is responsible for adding the team to the platform.

Once they’ve registered themselves, they can create a team page and invite team members. All the team captain needs is the team name, and team members’ email addresses.

Once you’ve set up the page, you can invite others to join your team by sharing via email, or social media.

We suggest a team default fundraising target as £100 per person so for example £500 for a group of five.

A team captain will be responsible for setting up your team fundraising page.

Once they’ve registered themselves, they can create a team page and invite you, or you can follow a link they share.

Everyone will be completing the same number of steps, but there will be a leaderboard on the homepage which will be updated based on fundraising totals. Make sure you keep checking to see where your team / organisation is on the leaderboard!

On our platform leader boards you can see your fundraising total as an individual and a team and see how your company is performing against our other partners!

Yes! You need to nominate a Team Captain who will sign up first and then be responsible for setting up a team page and recruiting others to the team. You can set up a team as an office, a group of friends, or any team of people you'd like.

On registering, you'll be set up with an online sponsorship page to help with any fundraising that you do. We encourage all participants to raise as much money as possible for Together for Short Lives, with funds supporting children’s hospice services across the UK. The sky’s the limit!

All of the money raised will be going towards supporting children’s hospices across the UK, who provide vital support for seriously ill children and their families, like Oscar's. You can read his story on our homepage.

For every £1 raised, 85 pence will go directly to local children's hospices across the UK and 15 pence will support Together for Short Lives' work as the umbrella charity for the children's palliative care sector.

Yes, we encourage you to share your fundraising page far and wide! If someone not taking part in the challenge would like to donate to your page then you can either share your fundraising page link with them, or can search for you as a fundraiser on the website, where they'll be able to donate. 

All donations made to your fundraising page will be automatically paid to Together for Short Lives, so you don't need to do anything. Offline sponsorship can be paid in to your bank, then you can record the donation on your giving page. This way, your fundraising total will show up in one place.

There are many ways to get to your fundraising page.

1. When you register for the event, you create an account. When logged in you can hover over your name on the top right corner and then see a link called 'Fundraising Page'.
2. You can search for your page on the website.
3. You will have an email confirmation with your URL link.

Your profile page includes your step tally so you can track your steps towards your 99,000 steps target. 

If you track your workouts with Fitbit, Strava, MapMyFitness or Garmin your steps will automatically add to your tally.

Automatically adding activity

Follow these steps to automatically add your activity:

1. Download the Fitbit, Strava, MapMyFitness or Garmin app and set up your account

2. Log in to your 99,000 Steps account.

3. Under the heading Connect your preferred Fitness app, click your chosen app.

4. Follow the prompts to connect your account

5. For Fitbit devices your steps over the entire day will be logged and you do not need to start an activity to add these to your step tally. If you are using MapMyFitness, Strava or Garmin you will need to select to start your acitivity at the beginning of each day of the challenge on the app on your phone. Once you end your stepping day, stop your activity and save your workout. This will need to be repeated each day of the challenge.

6. Your steps will be updated each day with the previous day's steps. If you have synced your app already but it is not working, please log in and reconnect it.

Manually adding activity

You can manually add your exercise to the tally in the My Fitness Activity tab within your logged in dashboard. This is a great option if you’re using a pedometer or a different method of tracking your steps.

Follow these steps to manually add your activity:

1. Log in to your account and select My Fitness Activity.

2. Under Add activity, enter the required fields. 

3. The logged steps will appear on your page within 24 hours. 

We encourage everyone to get to 99,000 steps in the week. It is challenging, but certainly achievable, with just over 14,000 steps needed per day.

For quick ways to get in more steps - take the stairs where you can, go for a long walk at the weekend, have a walking meeting with a colleague!

If you are struggling, please reach out to us for support. We are truly grateful for every step taken!

We are providing bespoke Together for Short lives medals for anyone who reaches a fundraising target of £100. The real prize is knowing that for every step, you're helping incredible children like Oscar.

Whilst 99,000 steps is a traditional step challenge, we appreciate that many of our supporters may use wheelchairs or mobility aids - a walking challenge might not be a good fit. We encourage you to try out other challenges around the theme of 99,000 - perhaps going on a 99 minute adventure in your local area! If you'd like additional ideas on making your 99,000 Steps challenge accessible, do just reach out to use at events@togetherforshortlives.org.uk and we'll be happy to help.

This is your challenge, so do it your way!