Bike-a-thon Fundraisers and Great Bikeathon Fundraising Ideas

Assemble a Bike-a-thon Committee

Planning a successful bike-a-thon fundraiser depends on the recruitment and action of a strong leadership team. Your team should comprise individuals with diverse skills and talents who share a common interest in the organization’s success. Committee members may include Development and organizational staff, Board Members, and volunteers (i.e., parents for school bike-a-thons). Working smart at this stage of the game requires delegation. Consider assigning a person or team of people to the following project areas:

• Legal and Logistics: this person should be responsible for obtaining permits and handling logistics, such as traffic control and insurance.
• Corporate Sponsorships: someone with experience in sales and building partnerships to solicit sponsorship and manage a sponsor expo area for local businesses and donors.
• Marketing and Public Relations: someone with a communications background to manage your fundraising website, write press releases, pitch story ideas to media, create print and promotional materials, and recruit celebrity event participation.
• Hospitality and Communications: this is your bike-a-thon cheerleader! He or she sends periodic coaching cards to participants, organizes pre and post-event meals and activities, and coordinates entertainment.
• Day of Event Operations: this person recruits and manages volunteers to help with registration, product sales, First Aid stations, and other logistics at the event.

Determine the Bike-a-thon Event Logistics

Basic event logistics include selecting the date and time and course location. You will likely need to get permits, manage traffic routes, and secure insurance to host a bike-a-thon.

For bike-a-thon fundraisers, participants agree to bike for a set amount of time or distance. During the designated time (i.e., one hour), the goal for each participant is to bike as many miles as possible around a loop; maximum miles may be established. Another popular option is for bikers to complete a set course – like a 10-mile loop. This ensures everyone ends up at the same point – the Finish Line. This may make it more interesting for bikers. Often there are a couple of biking routes to allow more experienced cyclists to push themselves while beginners and families can have fun with an easier course. Some organizations even include a Century Ride – a 100-mile course or a multi-day bike tour.

Find Bike-a-thon Sponsors

You will likely need sponsors to help underwrite the costs associated with your bike-a-thon. Sponsors can provide direct fundraising to cover start-up expenses and in-kind donations. But what do your sponsors want? Sponsors want to be recognized for their contributions. It’s important to allow your sponsors to interact with your bikers and get face time. DoJiggy websites highlight your sponsors with their logo and a link to their website. The title and larger sponsor should be included on t-shirts and all event swag.

Learn how to attract sponsors to your charity events.

Recruit Bikers Who Love Your Cause and Incentive Them to Fundraise

Your bikers will make or break your event. They are not only your event participants but become your organization’s face to the larger community – and they need your help to make the event a success.

Make it easy for them by providing a powerful software tool for easily customizing their page and collecting donations. Encourage healthy competition to motivate participants and teams to raise more donations by providing incentives and prizes for the best performers. Our Pledge Crowdfunding software includes a prize management system so that bikers can be recognized with icons on their page when they have reached certain fundraising levels, and administrators can easily determine which participants receive certain prizes. Offer prizes for the top individual and team fundraisers, and your fundraising will sour. Your community sponsors can assist with prizes too. For example, partner with a local bike shop that can donate a new bike for the participant who collects the most donations.

Register Bikers and Collect Online Donations with a Bike-a-thon Website

By now, you may think you’ve undertaken a rather large endeavor. You need some help – in the form of great bike-a-thon software. Utilizing our crowdfunding platform is a great way to register bikers and securely receive donations for your bike-a-thon event. Your participants will easily create personal fundraising pages where they can upload photos, explain their enthusiasm for your mission, and direct supporters to make secure donations online. They can easily send an email or post to Social Media sites with a donation request that includes a link to their personal or team donation page. This makes it easy for potential donors to contribute to your cause – no need to pull out a checkbook. The ease of donating is critical to fundraising event success.

Rock the Post Bike-a-thon Party

Bike-a-thons are great fundraisers because they bring money in to support your charity or organization and allow members of your group and community to interact in a fun, social environment while increasing community awareness about your cause.

Following your bike-a-thon (or at the close of the Bike to Work Day or Week fundraising event), invite supporters to a community picnic or BBQ. Food and drinks can be provided at no cost to your hard-peddling bikers and sold to family and friends who come to watch and enjoy. Much of the food can be donated by local businesses via in-kind donations. In return, business sponsors are provided with benefits and the visibility they deserve. Perhaps you can find local bands or a DJ interested in performing.