You signed up for the ride! How do you fundraise?

Congrats on signing up for Montreal’s Enbridge’s Ride to Conquer cancer benefiting Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General Hospital! (If you haven’t, well, do it today – here!)

I always find the biggest deterrent for most people to get involved in charity rides is fundraising. The traditional response is “I work full time, I have to train for the ride, take my kids to school, and also fundraise? It’s too much!” Well, in my opinion, I find it’s the easiest. Why? Because you can tie fundraising directly to training.

People are always interested in hearing stories of accomplishment, especially close friends, colleagues and family. You can send emails monthly, weekly or bi-weekly that showcase your training, pictures of you riding interesting places, blogging about the difficulty getting those legs to peddle hours on end and other things you are employing in your personal time to really make this ride a success. When you write those emails and blogs, you are getting people involved, and even though they aren’t necessarily riding in it, they can feel the ride with you and appreciate your sacrifice.

To be truthful, with the plethora of charities out today; also out are the standard emails of “support me in xyz run”, as you would market yourself in a job interview, you need to market yourself to your potential donor list. Most people are too humble to brag about themselves, but don’t be, what you have signed up to do, most people will never consider it. It’s a selfless, wonderful act of generosity – you should be proud!

Secondly, you can create a system where you are planning to ride up to 1000 kilometers from now until race day to get ready, and as such you want to raise $1 for every 1 kilometer. This way you can ask people to sponsor training rides, $10 = 10 kilometers of riding, $100 = 100 kilometers. I know it sounds daunting, but believe me… it’s fun and motivating (granting you have left enough time from beginning of fundraising until now). But be careful to set a limit, maybe 1000 kilometers to start and increase if you want later on.

Thirdly, which might be the most unorthodox for most people is to contact local business owners and franchises (e.g. LCBO, Sears, grocery stores, community centers etc.) in order to ask if you can “spin” (stationary cycle) in front of their stores to raise money. I find that this is only prudent if your goal is somewhere over $10,000 as it would require a lot more than your personal network to attract. However, you would be surprised how willing businesses are willing to help you and the causes you support.

Lastly, do NOT wait until the last month to fundraise, the same way you wouldn’t wait until the last month to train – start at least 6 months in advance. Start today.

Also, if you are riding in a charity event – like Enbridge’s Ride to Conquer Cancer benefiting Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General Hospital, you can tap into resources they have already prepared for you; like donation forms, flyers, training manuals and logos to use for your respective blogs.

So good luck!! And I hope you can surprise yourself with the fundraising goals I know you can achieve!