Project Management plan/business plan
 

not sure if this is the right area for this thread but here goes.

i am currently planning a ride across the Americas raising money for the thin green line foundation, which supports rangers who have died in the field.
this is a follow up ride of which i rode across Africa for the same cause earlier this year. :scooter:

i plan to do this ride in 2016. i am a ranger myself and i have had a few other rangers who want to join me on this ride.
now i learnt a lot from my last ride, the major thing was lack of planning/organisation. :oops2:

i will attempt to get sponsorship for the ride so i want to be incredibly organised, have clear goals and objectives. i am now in the process of writing up a business plan/ project management plan.
so i am wondering if anyone has written one of these plans before for there motorcycle ride? :helpsmilie: if so what words of wisdom can you pass onto me?
would you be willing to allow me to take a look at it?
i'm in the early stages of writing this up so please let me hear all your thoughts?c?

oh no i was moved to making a difference. now no one will give me any help:P

?c??c??c??c??c??c??c??c??c? PLEASE

Project
 

Congrat on your decision , I like the fact that you want to do a business plan and my big desapointment regarding charity ride is that in most cases it look like riders wanting to sponsor their trips . With a real business plan and a transparent view of what the money actually do ,you will most certainly get more funding. The population in the USA is pretty generous but we they have been abused for too long , been honest and detailed oriented is a way to show how they contribute and what they actually do with thier donation. A basic monthly report or bideo news on Youtube could get good exposure . As far as web presence you can use a blog on worldpress (free or cheap) ,pretty easy to use.If you need help with that let me know .
Best of luck .

thanks for the feedback :thumbup1:

Assuming you really are trying to raise money for your cause and not trying to get your vacation paid for, I would include something like this:

"Every cent collected will go towards XYZ Charity, nothing will be used for 'expenses' or anything of the sort."

I wouldn't support any ride that didn't have disclaimer similar to this, but that's just me.

good point.
in my previous ride i didn't even see any any of the cash. prefer it that way. i don't want to touch it see it or anything. send it straight through to the thin green line. so yeah any money would go straight to the charity!
thanks for the help:clap:

We are doing something similar to this at the moment. We have a fundraising target of 10,000euro and just recently set up a kickstarter type of page to get funds for our equipment and visas.

have a look at our website for further info.

Having done three trips like this in the past I always made very clear distinctions between sponsorship and fundraising.

Sponsorship was a business giving me/us money for our trip and slapping a logo on the car, etc. The money would go to cover trip related expenses.

Fundraising was the money for the charity. 100%. We had businesses that did both, but there was a very clear deliniation and people seemed to appreciate the transparency.

We sort of created a business plan, but in a more informal way. We set up targets for our fundraising and gave information and contacts etc. We approached it sort of like a "press kit." In that way we were able to show off all aspects of the trip so that it was a good mix of information, a pitch, and progress tracker. We always have made our trips a bit irreverant with our Mongol Rally angle being that we were called "The Rolling Cones" and were driving a giant pink and green ice cream truck from the UK to Mongolia...and last summer we drove from Goodwood, UK to the Cape of Good Hope, SA under the moniker "Shoebaru" while driving a pair of Subaru Foresters made to look like a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors.

We stood out and obtained a lot of publicity this way, which our sponsors loved, and it led to more fundraising. I equate it to someone telling me they are going to run a 5k to raise money for cancer research. That's a great cause and I am happy to support, but if they come to me and say they are running a 5k to support cancer research while dressed as Indiana Jones while a friend is dressed as a massive boulder chasing him while also running the 5k a la Raiders of the Lost Ark, then I am much more inclined to donate/support and take an active role in watching.

So, when I've done charitable things I've tried to take a similar approach and I've kept the tone of my materials professional, yet jovial and light in line with our image.

So you want donors to fund your vacation?

Exactly why many people, including myself, would never donate to such a trip.

Ozranger - if you really want to maximize your donations to your cause then fund the trip yourselves and make that clear. IMHO.

Did you read any of the site? we are funding everything ourselves, 10,000euro is going to temple st. not a penny of that money is being used on the trip.

kickstarter project was set up as type of sponsorship gimmick -separate from the fundraising.

How is your fundraising going and where in the Americas are you heading?

gomgat: you're responding to a thread that hasn't been updated in two and a half years.

But what's a ranger?

Oh thanks Tim, i just saw the dates, guess the rides done. Wonder how he did ?

Probably a forest ranger