[OT - kind of] Company sponsorship

Mark said:

Hello,

I'll be doing A Big Ride in mid-September, for charidee.

I'm toying with asking the company I work for to help - whether it be a
donation or whatever[1]. The problem is that I don't want to be seen as
pushy as it already has it's own "approved" charities it does stuff for.

Quoted message said:

[1] Not exactly sure what "whatever" includes here...

Is the ride on a workday? One thing some companies allow are a number of
charity days. My other half can take one additional day's paid leave a
year as a 'charity day' This can take a number of forms. Maybe you company
does something similar? (If it's not a workday they may let you take a day
of in lieu.)

Colin

"Mark" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hello,

I'll be doing A Big Ride in mid-September, for charidee.

I'm toying with asking the company I work for to help - whether it be a
donation or whatever[1]. The problem is that I don't want to be seen as
pushy as it already has it's own "approved" charities it does stuff for.

Just wondered if anyone has done something similar at the place where they
work & what the result was.

Thanks

Mark

[1] Not exactly sure what "whatever" includes here...

My company arranged a London to Brighton team- paid for the entries,
transport to Clapham, and transport back from Brighton. Maybe yours would
provide help with getting to or from the ride start/end? If its a weekend,
maybe a transport company your company uses could be persuaded to use one of
its lorries (that would normally be empty on a weekend?)

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

"Mark" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hello,

I'll be doing A Big Ride in mid-September, for charidee.

I'm toying with asking the company I work for to help - whether it be a
donation or whatever[1]. The problem is that I don't want to be seen as
pushy as it already has it's own "approved" charities it does stuff for.

Just wondered if anyone has done something similar at the place where they
work & what the result was.

Thanks

Mark

[1] Not exactly sure what "whatever" includes here...

hi mark

it all depends on a lot of factors - but why not ask ?

the worst thing that will happen is that say *no* - and where`s the harm in
that ?

what does your company usually do ?

where i work we have a national charity each year , but on a local level we
donate small amounts (usually worth about a tenner) to just about anyone who
asks - usually school fetes and raffles at the local hospital or british
legion

other things are on an ad-hoc basis

just ask - they might even surprise you :-)

Mark said:

Just wondered if anyone has done something similar at the place where they
work & what the result was.

We did very well for our charity events for a local cause. They were at the
weekend, so not interfering with work. Some things I remember:

Companies like publicity. Getting the name in the papers, and on t-shirts
and things for good events like this are excellent advertising. That was
particularly good for ours because we had a Good News story to go with it
(recovered cancer patient doing fundraising for hospital), though in that
case the patient can start to worry if there's too much publicity in his
name and pressure for company name dropping.

It needs balancing. Fortunately it was fine for me, as the companies
involved had both entered cyclists and had contributed a lot, so it made
sense to mention them in that context. I limited name dropping to the
truth, but mentioned to the reporters that the companies were interested in
seeing their names. The reporters understood.

Companies worry about insurance, especially on dangerous things like bike
rides. It was definitely a case of "People from the companies involved
doing the ride", though 1car1 did arrange and insure the transport for us
last time. If the company is seen as doing the event, they may have to
insure it.

Our company helped a lot, sorting transport the first time and overnight
accomodation at the managing director's house on both rides. We did know
eachother though. The second time, a local car hire firm joined in,
contributed some riders, some organisational effort, and the vans to get us
to the start. It is worthwhile asking around.

You'll have to spend some time phoning around local papers and radio
stations along the route, TV news (we nearly got on telly) and papers in
places where riders live (so they can say "Local cyclists ride for
charity..."😉. Cycle shops on the route are also worthwhile contacts, and
may like to be visited by one of the teams.

We had teams of 6, enough for safety, not too much so as to be annoying to
other road/cycleway users.

We get a few people now asking us about the next ride. I expect we'll do a
circular route starting and stopping near home, with a camp out in the
Yorkshire Dales half way. This will make transport easier to organise,
though having the vans meant that we had frequent checkpoints and the
ability to rescue a stranded cyclist if needed. We also had to move a spare
inner tube between teams quickly at one stage, and the vans could carry
large supplies of food, drink and tools.

The rides have to be challenging enough to make them worthwile sponsoring,
but easy enough to not put off too many riders. Recognisable challenges
like Liverpool to Leeds, or Trans-Pennine, or Coast to Coast, work well as
they sound good.

Our riders did some training in the months before, but if you specify a huge
ride, you'll put a few people off. We were doing 106 or 127 miles over 2
days, which is not a bad ride. It really is a question of number of riders
versus amount of challenge, and perhaps we'd have raised more with more
riders even over a shorter route. We did allow people to join us for day 2
only, which was the easier of the two days on both rides.

- Richard

--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard dot Corfield at ntlworld dot com
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ Except in the Twilight Zone.