Like Two Sticks Rubbed Together

Wednesday, August 11, 2004 – Coinciding with last weekend’s Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC), a 192-mile bike ride for charity involving nearly 4,000 cyclists, the August 8th edition of the Boston Sunday Globe ran a timely, insightful article on the growing popularity of pledge-based fundraising events. Such sponsored “athons,” as the Globe referred to them, make up a “$1 billion industry,” according to the newspaper, and apparently the PMC people are the leaders of the pack.

“No other athletic event raises or contributes more money to charity than the PMC,” proclaims the organization’s Web site. “Since 1980, thousands of PMC cyclists have raised more than $102 million for cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through its Jimmy Fund.”

Good for them. And good for those on the receiving end of all those charitable dollars. We’re talking about a classic win-win situation. Which is precisely why pledge-based fundraising events are such a monstrous slam dunk in the minds of all concerned. The donor base feels good about lending financial assistance to the cause because the appeals have been made on such a deeply personal level. The gifts are made out of altruism, but sponsors are also being loyal to a friend, relative or colleague who just so happens to be selflessly participating in a physically challenging, emotionally demanding event for an almost unimaginable greater good. We’re talking about the ultimate coalition of generous, like-hearted people, an unbroken chain of volunteers and philanthropists, athletes and advocates, all enduringly bound together on behalf of one common cause.

That was certainly my experience when I ran the Boston Athletic Association’s Boston Marathon in 2003 and 2002 for The Home for Little Wanderers, and in 1996 for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a member of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team. All three times I mailed more than 100 letters to everyone I knew, asking them to sponsor my run with their own charitable contribution. And all three times the response rates were well off the charts, over 50% with an average gift around $45, raising thousands of dollars that might otherwise have been left on the table.

But frankly, I would chalk up such overwhelming success more to the awesome premise behind this unique fundraising model than to the aura surrounding the actual event and participants themselves. Instead of receiving a relatively impersonal mass appeal from a large, unfamiliar entity, my audience was being introduced to a wonderful, worthy cause by someone they could trust, someone who was willing to go the distance to help finance better lives for the less fortunate among us.

That’s certainly the idea behind all these pledge-based fundraising events: to harness all that unchanneled, unlimited camaraderie that lives and breathes between participants and sponsors, then, like two sticks rubbed together, to watch it catch fire.

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