Organising a charity ride - How?

White Rabbit

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I've just done a RTW trip for my own pleasure and on the way round I called into a town called Harvey in North Dakata just because it's my name.

On further investigation I found that the US has a total of 10 'Harveys'. This then sparked my imagination and using the US Mapquest site I put in all my familys names including surname. The results are as follows.

Family name - Ringrose; Mount Ringrose found in B.C. Canada
Father - John; x1 VA, US
Mother - Heather; x3 MO/OR/WA, US
Katy; x4 TX/LA/MO/WV, US
Harvey; x10 IL/LA/AR/IA/ME/MI/ND/KY/MO/MS, US
Elspeth; x0
Hannah; x8 ND/SC/AL/GA/KY/MI/MS/PA, US
Megan; x0 closest was Megansett?
Emily; x1 MN, US

Now this gives me a start/finish of MT Ringrose and 27 towns to find on my way round, and the ability to do a ride for someone elses benefit.

Now my question is, has anyone here been involved with any large scale fundrasing rides. Are there any pitfalls I need to be aware of? Do I split the fundrasing between one family charity or do I split it between the choice of each family member. How do I go about getting sponsor ship from big firms, is it as simple as just writing a letter begging. My list of questions is/could be endless, i'm just hoping that someone on here might be able to point me in the right direction :thumb

Harvey
 
Oh where to start...

Raising money for charity is not as straight forward as it seems. Most charities will require some conditions to be imposed if you are doing an event in their name. For this reason I would pick just one charity. It keeps things simple.

Most of the 'usual suspects' when it comes to bike trips are fed up with funding people's jollies and will put up walls for you to climb if you mention sponsorship.

Always remember when you are begging money off a company that they will be thinking "what's in it for me". They want column inches or better still broadcast images of you either talking about their product or wearing something with a prominent logo. If you can't promise something like this you are unlikely to get anywhere.

Writing letters is OK but you need to follow up with a call. It's easier to ignore a letter.

Your ride may be long and hard but the (non biking) sponsors don't understand or care. All they want is exposure and publicity. Some will be put off by the fact you are doing it on a bike as they may not want their company image to be associated with a dangerous hobby...

You will get rejected time and time and time again. Keep focussed on why you are doing it and keep chipping away. Remember that a promise is worthless. Hard cash or product is all that counts. Lots of people will try to fob you off by saying 'yeah sure' hoping that you will eventually get tired and go away. It's easier than saying 'No'

Contacts are key. Use them.

It's harder than it should be to do good for others so be prepared.

If that sounds negative - it's not meant to. It's just the reality. You really need to want to do this if it is to succeed.

I think it's a great idea and if you ever do it I'll be first on the list to throw some cash at it.

:thumb good luck
 
Did you have a beer here :D ;

White Rabbit is an east village/lower east side bar and lounge in new york city that serves latin and asian food gastropub style.
 
Schianninin Thanks for your reply, clear and to the point positive but with a realistic approach.

I'm expecting many walls to be put in place and hopefully climbed be for I can get this thing off the ground.

After some thought I have opted for NSPCC and the american equivalent (sp). It will make it harder by splitting the money but coming from over here and doing the ride over there I felt I needed to cover both bases. I would hope to get TV and media coverage over here and the same in the US therefore good exposeure to all.

Harvey
 
I've done a coupe of small scale charity runs and found that if I selected my sponsorship targets carefully I got a very good hit rate.

For example I did a SS1000 run round the coast of Scotland and got a local bike shop to service my bike for free before. Cost to them, about £25 (ex labour) value to me £125 and I made sure I bought my new tyres and brake pads from them (which they fitted for free again saving about £50).

I'm now planning a much bigger trip for next year and will be chinning some oil companies for fuel support, tyre companies for a set of tyres etc. I make sure I tell them that I already have some sponsorship and that my target for said sponsorship is reasonable and achievable. Remember that the cost to them should be mudh less than teh value to them. Asking for cash is best directed to friends and aquaintances and corporate stuff is best for supporting your attempt.

As for exposure, hit the local papers from home and then contact the local rags at each of teh towns you're visiting and get them interested as well. This translates into exposure for your potential sponsors.

It's hellish work playing on off against the other but once it starts it can go quite smoothly. BTW remember once you get sponsorship you are comitted and if you call off you can basically forget ever getting sponsred again. Keep it realistic and achieveable but still challenging, after all you're not Sir Ranulph Fiennes!!
 
Hi,

I'm doing a sponsored ride this year www.longwayup.org and so far so good with the corporate sponsorship. I found the best way was to look professional from the start - I managed to get a few quid to cover some flyers which look very good and paid for the domain name and got a basic website up and running. With that I then approached companies that would be at the NEC BikeShow (the NEC website had a list of exhibitors) and once I got one or two on board (with free publicity for small outlay to them) I could then use that as a lever for others. By the time the sow came long I had 5 or 6 on board, the night before I went to the NEC another sponsor came on board because they knew I'd be telling people about them at the show. At the show itself, BMW came on board ans this is opening more doors as I'm plugging away at publicity (local/regional/national media). Its hard work but very satisfying. All I need now are some cash sponsors to help pay the direct costs and then the general public to support me. Like you I'm doing 2 charities and whilst this can be more tricky than a single charity, you should find them both helpful in advertising the venture in their own newletters etc. I hope this helps and good luck! Cheers Alex
 


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