Charity Sportives - Would you fundraise?

KidsCan

Hi Everyone,

For the past few years, we’ve organised The Macc Monster – www.maccmonster.co.uk – The cycle sportive in aid of Kidscan, the children’s cancer research charity.

As the event is organised to raise vital funds for our childhood cancer research, we offer sponsor materials to everyone taking part. However, the vast majority of people taking part choose not to fundraise. This is entirely their choice, but in order to make the event worthwhile for the charity, we’re hoping that more people will be keen to fundraise.

We are more than happy to provide people with sponsorship materials in order to make their fundraising as easy as possible.
This can include:
• Personalised sponsor forms
• A JustGiving.com or VirginMoneyGiving online sponsor page
• A Text To Donate code

My questions for you are as follows.
1) Would you be prepared to take part in a cycle sportive and pay the entry fee (£20) if you were also required to raise minimum sponsorship amount – e.g. £50 or £100
2) Would you be happier to raise the minimum sponsorship amount – e.g. £50/£100 if you did not have to pay to take part in the sportive?

If you’re able to answer these two questions I would really appreciate hearing back from you.
Thank you for your time.

The Kidscan Team.

zippy483

For what it's worth for me option 2 would be the better model or actually probably an amalgum of the two charge £20 to enter but with the option of reclaiming your entry fee if you raise £50 in sponsorship, You will probably find a fair few charitably minded people would raise the money and "forget" to reclaim double whammy so to speak.

Alternatively up the entry fee to say £40 and make it plain that £20 of that is a donation to said charity ??

daveski12

I did London to Brighton on behalf of CRASH on Sunday.

Honestly I hated asking for sponsorship. All my friends know I cycle and they know that I would do 54 miles on a Sunday anyway. That being said I did raise over the £100 minimum required.

I've really gone off the idea of sportives recently, I think as I've become a more confident cyclist the idea of paying so much to ride my bike and then having to ask people for money seems stupid.

KidsCan

zippy483 wrote:

For what it's worth for me option 2 would be the better model or actually probably an amalgum of the two charge £20 to enter but with the option of reclaiming your entry fee if you raise £50 in sponsorship, You will probably find a fair few charitably minded people would raise the money and "forget" to reclaim double whammy so to speak.

Alternatively up the entry fee to say £40 and make it plain that £20 of that is a donation to said charity ??

Hi Zippy.

The first suggestion you have has potential, but it's not too disimilar to the way we work now. While we offer the sponsorship option to people, it's taken up by very few people.
We have charged £25 in the past but we went for £20 to try and appeal to more cyclists. Putting it up to £40 would see a drop in the numbers taking part.

It's more about encouraging people to raise sponsorship really!

KidsCan

daveski12 wrote:

I did London to Brighton on behalf of CRASH on Sunday.

Honestly I hated asking for sponsorship. All my friends know I cycle and they know that I would do 54 miles on a Sunday anyway. That being said I did raise over the £100 minimum required.

I've really gone off the idea of sportives recently, I think as I've become a more confident cyclist the idea of paying so much to ride my bike and then having to ask people for money seems stupid.

Hi Daveski,

That's a very interesting post. Our main problem is that the people who do our event, do events like it every weekend so as you say, they're unlikely to raise sponsorship.
Do you think £50 would be achieveable?

markhewitt1978

I've done charity rides without raising money. Partly for me it's just a bike ride, one of many I'm doing throughout the year, and not some massive yearly event, the way it may be for the organisers. If raising sponsorship money was compulsory, I would likely just not enter and do a different sportive somewhere else / another weekend.

People did ask me - why am I not asking for sponsorship? Well the ride in question was 58 miles. I've been doing 40-60 miles most Sunday's all summer, and I've already done sportives longer than 58 miles and over a more difficult course. It would be the equivalent of asking people to sponsor me to go for a walk down in the park -- too easy.

I'm of the opinion that if I'm asking for sponsorship it should be for an difficult feat, such as Coast to Coast, LEJOG, etc.

KidsCan

markhewitt1978 wrote:

I've done charity rides without raising money. Partly for me it's just a bike ride, one of many I'm doing throughout the year, and not some massive yearly event, the way it may be for the organisers. If raising sponsorship money was compulsory, I would likely just not enter and do a different sportive somewhere else / another weekend.

People did ask me - why am I not asking for sponsorship? Well the ride in question was 58 miles. I've been doing 40-60 miles most Sunday's all summer, and I've already done sportives longer than 58 miles and over a more difficult course. It would be the equivalent of asking people to sponsor me to go for a walk down in the park -- too easy.

I'm of the opinion that if I'm asking for sponsorship it should be for an difficult feat, such as Coast to Coast, LEJOG, etc.

Hi Mark,
Thank you very much for getting back to us. I think you've just nailed down the main problem we're facing!
I really appreciate your comments.

Woodmonkey

I do a couple of charity rides a year, entry refunded if you raise a certain amount is most appealing, some give you a free t shirt if you raise above £100 . I know the viking challenge seem to raise a shed load of money have you tried contacting other organizers to see what they do?

KidsCan

Woodmonkey wrote:

I do a couple of charity rides a year, entry refunded if you raise a certain amount is most appealing, some give you a free t shirt if you raise above £100 . I know the viking challenge seem to raise a shed load of money have you tried contacting other organizers to see what they do?

You tend to find other organisations can be a bit cagey about telling others how to do their event!
That said, I'll certainly have a look. The refund/t-shirt idea is also quite good.
The only problem there is having to get loads of t-shirts printed which then we might be stuck with!

Woodmonkey

I think you will struggle to get people to raise sponsorship if they do a few events a year, you can't keep asking friends and family for money everytime, I would think you would be better focussing on local people who it would be there only event. A mate of mine organized a ride to raise money for the local church roof, being an electrician he managed to get all types of local builders, merchants and other businesses putting teams in and trying to beat each other on the ride and with raising money. Maybe a bit of legwork locally may be the answer.

arran77

The problem I find with trying to raise money for doing a cycling event is that people often look at you and think that they are 'paying' for you to ride which is something you enjoy, for that reason I look for events where I can just pay an entry fee myself, which goes to the charity, rather than having to raise a certain amount of sponsorship for a free place.

apreading

arran77 wrote:

The problem I find with trying to raise money for doing a cycling event is that people often look at you and think that they are 'paying' for you to ride which is something you enjoy, for that reason I look for events where I can just pay an entry fee myself, which goes to the charity, rather than having to raise a certain amount of sponsorship for a free place.

This +1

I hate the idea of gettng my entry fee refunded if I raise a certain amount - that means the money people think is going to the charity is actually paying for my ride/holiday. I prefer to know that all costs are covered by my entry fee and any money raised goes to the charity - I cannot ask people to sponsor me with a clear conscience unless that is the case. Where it has not been the case on a couple of rides I have done, I have sponsored myself with a sufficient amount that people can see by the amount needed to cover the costs, sometimes to meet the minimum sponsorship level and I have then been clear to people that I have covered the costs and their money is going to good rather than paying for my fun.

Thats the main reason why I specifically chose the company that I did London to Paris with this year - there was a self funded option where I paid £600 odd quid to cover my costs, rather than most of the rides where you pay £100 or so and have to raise £1000 in sponsorship - effectively getting a free holiday - shameful in my opinion.

nicklouse

are there any MTB sportives? and what actually is one?

apreading

As far as I can tell, a Sportive is defined as an organised commercial ride, with specified/signposted route and backup/refreshments but where nobody is allowed to race (officially anyway) and the organiser does nothing to encourage racing (or their insurance would be invalidated).

I think Evans Rideit MTB events would count as an MTB Sportive. I think there is also an off-road London to Brighton that would qualify and South Downs Way etc.

arran77

nicklouse wrote:

are there any MTB sportives? and what actually is one?

I guess the term 'sportive' is generally associated with road bikes, 'organised ride' is maybe more like it for MTB, something like the Evans 'Ride It' things, Wiggle do them too don't they?

markhewitt1978

Yes UK cycling events (the Wiggle organisers) have a few MTB events. However Evans usually has a MTB event on the Saturday before the road event on the Sunday. But even they use the sportive term exclusively for the road event.

The Rookie

HONC would come close to being an MTB Sportiv as well http://www.winchcombecc.org.uk/honc/

mudsucker

I did the Devils challenge organised by Red Kite Events. 80K off road. I guess that would be an MTB sportive.

I've done several rides through the bike events website (Tour de Tendring, Essex Castle, Essex Countryside etc.) and I generally just do it for the ride. I did fund raise for the last one I did which was 75 miles and the longest I've done (up until this weekend that is!) and with a lot of persuasion I managed to raise £280. It was very hard work to prise peoples wallets open though!

Gazlar

I much preferred the way we did it, pick a route and organise yourself, its not hard work and you can tailor it to exactly your needs.

nicklouse

Gaz could you see the CCCC being done by hundreds of people at the same time (or one section) I dont see it really working off road as all it needs is one pinch point and everyone stops. to remove pinch points you remove the whole of road riding part. opps

veronese68

I did the London to Brighton off road a couple of weeks ago. 3,000 people doing 75 miles mainly off road. You're dead right, lots of pinch points where it all got snarled up. There is a long rooty climb in Surrey and trying to pick your way round slower riders and those pushing was a right pain. I had a stupid clipless moment when a guy stopped suddenly in front of me as there was a bit of bracken across a narrow path. At least I had a soft landing, unfortunately in a load of nettles. It was too busy which took away a lot of the fun.
My son wants to do it so I might have to do it again though.

The Northern Monkey

nicklouse wrote:

Gaz could you see the CCCC being done by hundreds of people at the same time (or one section) I dont see it really working off road as all it needs is one pinch point and everyone stops. to remove pinch points you remove the whole of road riding part. opps

As CWNT found out on the IOM E2E... scroll to about 2:50.
I'd give up there and then!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhLYhf5r1DE

Gazlar

nicklouse wrote:

Gaz could you see the CCCC being done by hundreds of people at the same time (or one section) I dont see it really working off road as all it needs is one pinch point and everyone stops. to remove pinch points you remove the whole of road riding part. opps

Not in the exact format, but I see the possibility for something like that working if you staggered start times effectively and went at it as a team crossing more than a race, I'm not saying it would be perfect, but I'd happily have a go at doing that kind of thing.

My saying I liked what we did isn't an oh were great kind of thing either as it might read, it was more that it was thoroughly enjoyable and everyone worked as a team to tackle it rather than take it as being a race, although I do agree there would be a maximum limit, but I suppose events like the rat race crossing seem to work