The Money

So, you may ask, how is ride paid for? And what about this fundraising thing? Great questions - please take a closer look at the two monetary elements that make up TechBikers.

 

Organizational Cost: what it means to get 30 people safely from A to B, on bikes

For TechBikers, organizational cost includes things such as transportation of people and material, food, drinks, hotels, bike maintenance, scouting the route before hand etc. Believe it or not, it’s actually quite a lot of work to get 30 riders of different fitness levels safely, and in time, from one city to another. That’s why we work with professional bike tour organizers such as CycleFriendly and Move:Ment, who have years of experience preparing and successfully running such events. This ensures that we all have the best time possible in the saddle.

The cost incurred through working with the bike tour organizer is covered in two ways:

  • Corporate Sponsoring: companies such as DKB, Mastercaerd, KSP and others  agree to cover 2/3 of the cost of the ride, in exchange for media exposure, exposure to the start-up community and a display of Corporate Social Responsibility, since Techbikers is a charity ride.

  • Ticketing: individual riders purchase a ticket to participate in the ride, and pay about 1/3 of what our cost per person. The ticket price is subsidised so that the ride stays affordable for a broad audience - and also, because we want riders to pay it forward by fundraising for charity.

Both sponsoring and ticketing revenue goes directly to the bike tour operator.

 

Fundraising: Paying it forward

Because riders get such a sweet deal thanks to our sponsors, and because sponsors support us due to the charitable nature of the ride, we ask riders to fundraise 750 EUR each for the charity we’re supporting that year. While fundraising, as a concept, is not so well known in continental Europe, we believe that it is time that we change that.

Each rider is expected to gather voluntary contributions to his or her fundraising goal by, for example,

  • asking colleagues, friends and family for support

  • throwing a fundraising party and donating the entrance fee

  • auctioning off belongings or skills (cakes are popular)

  • getting a business to donate in exchange for wearing their brand on the ride

  • etc.

We’re aware that this might seem like a daunting prospect, but we know that it’s easily possible to raise 750 EUR and more - and we also work closely with the charity to support riders with tips and tricks.

All of the funds raised go directly to the charity, and are tax deductible.