Organising a charity fundraiser

[yogicris]

Hi
I am keen to orgainise a night ride around my home town for the local homeless drop in centre, Any ideas on how to start this ball rolling, or wheel turning? thank you

 

[Deleted member 35268]

Good luck with that, sounds like a worthy cause.

How about this...
1. Write up the event in words, describing the plan. E.g. 20 Mile night right around Hastings in aid of XYZ
2. Get some help putting this all together, make a poster or flyer, set a date, time
3. Put a simple website or Facebook page together
4. Contact the Council and make them aware of your plans (I don't think this will be an issue and they may even help)
5. Sort out a Fund Raising account via one of the online vendors.
6. Organise how people can get on-board, how they register to take part etc.

I imagine some insurance policy would be a good idea to cover the organiser.
Question for you - Is the Drop in Centre a Registered Charity ?

Another way of getting support would be to use the Charitable status to gain places on other organised rides and events, so you don't have to organise one yourself - just an idea.

Seems quite a long list and I don't want to put you off.

I have never organised anything like this, but I have done several charity rides and have got to know some of the charities well in doing so.

 

[Dogtrousers]

This thread may be of interest Anyone organised their own charity ride?
It strays off topic a bit (on the subject of hats) but there is some interesting stuff in there.

 

[mjr]

If you've no experience in organising group rides, see if any local riding groups will do it for you, preferably a pro choice one (not just on hats, but bike types and many other things).

 

[sidevalve]

CHECK THE INSURANCE AND DO NOT FORGET IT !!!! Sorry to be so dramatic but in this world there are far too many people and ambulance chasers who will be only too happy to claim for anything and YOU will be first in the firing line.. Also on a better note contact the police they too can be really helpful - when we used to do m/cycle runs for the local childrens home we would sometimes get a police outrider or two and even a wave through at junctions - if riding at night you may well get the same.
Also if either the council or police ask you to do something or suggest a date follow their instructions if you can [after all when you do it isn't so important as that you do it]. They may know something you don't - a road may be closed for repair for example.
Anyhow good luck.

 

[dellzeqq]

Hi
I am keen to orgainise a night ride around my home town for the local homeless drop in centre, Any ideas on how to start this ball rolling, or wheel turning? thank you

Well....................the FNRttC ran three night rides that pulled in about £100,000, and my advice would be
a) don't do it without having been on a number of group rides with the CTC or whoever and led a good few rides yourself
b) realise that a lot of the people who turn up will do stupid things
c) get the charity to place you on their officers and directors insurance
d) risk assess the route
e) set entrance criteria that are evaluated in a risk assessment
f) work out your marshalling, your back up, your emergency back up, and evaluate everything in risk assessments
and finally
g) don't. Not if you want to keep your sanity.

 

[sidevalve]

Well....................the FNRttC ran three night rides that pulled in about £100,000, and my advice would be
a) don't do it without having been on a number of group rides with the CTC or whoever and led a good few rides yourself
b) realise that a lot of the people who turn up will do stupid things
c) get the charity to place you on their officers and directors insurance
d) risk assess the route
e) set entrance criteria that are evaluated in a risk assessment
f) work out your marshalling, your back up, your emergency back up, and evaluate everything in risk assessments
and finally
g) don't. Not if you want to keep your sanity.

Sounds bad -All I can say is that in over ten years of organizing charity runs our m/cycle club had no problems at all [and there are some pretty mad bikers around].
Take advice [as I said get the police involved] - get some insurance [how is up to you] - stress to all concerned that this is NOT some kind of race [there are those] and make sure you keep a record of ALL cash involved.

 

[Shaun]

Bump after moving here from the community projects sub-forum.

 

[Dave7]

I understand that the good old HMRC treat the contributions as profit and you can be liable for tax......so better to piggy back an organised charity.

 

[Debade]

You caught my attention when you said night ride. The Riverwest 24 was started in the same fashion you are suggesting (people who wanted to do something for their community) but as a community ride, not a fundraiser. However with the proper ride fees, it could be a fundraiser. . It starts at night but people/teams ride for 24 hours around a neighborhood. It was designed to build the neighborhood and when you say you want to develop a program for the homeless, it sounds like neighborhood building to me.

The ride use to accept only 300 and be filled up in minutes. I have only volunteered in the past. Here is a link to the site if you are interested in investigating http://www.riverwest24.com/about/overview

 

[jay clock]

If you go down the getting insurance route I would be amazed if they didn't want you to at least tell people that to take part in your ride that they had to wear helmets. Very unlikely that they would accept a "wear a helmet if you want to" vibe.....

 

[Tim Hall]

If you go down the getting insurance route I would be amazed if they didn't want you to at least tell people that to take part in your ride that they had to wear helmets. Very unlikely that they would accept a "wear a helmet if you want to" vibe.....

AIUI the rides @dellzeqq organised (both the fundraising ones and the regular FNRTTC rides) had insurance cover and no mandatory helmet rule.

 

[jay clock]

AIUI the rides @dellzeqq organised (both the fundraising ones and the regular FNRTTC rides) had insurance cover and no mandatory helmet rule.

fair enough!

 

[mjr]

AIUI the rides @dellzeqq organised (both the fundraising ones and the regular FNRTTC rides) had insurance cover and no mandatory helmet rule.

Even BC's Sky Rides have no helmet rule - lots of CUK and CycleNation rides don't. Neither my personal, travel nor business cycling insurance have helmet rules. As far as I can tell from investigating a few, the rule is imposed by a helmet-using manager or organiser, rather than the insurers. Insurers are far keener that you plan and assess the route, have marshals where needed, have contingency plans and brief riders properly... you know, stuff likely to reduce incidents.

 

[jefmcg]

http://www.riverwest24.com/about/overview

What's happened to the euphemism?? "Elder: Solo, or team, all riders 55+"

@yogicris - good luck with your project. You know what would be wonderful? If you could get enough sponsorship to cover costs, so that every penny coming from riders and their sponsors go to your charity.

(that's probably impossible, but I am sure you will do better than http://www.nightrider.org.uk where the first £99 from every rider goes to the event organisers)