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HABITAT 500 BIKE RIDE FOR AFFILIATES Looking for new ways to raise funds for your affiliate? Consider the Habitat 500! Whether you ride or you recruit people from your community to ride for you, the Habitat 500 can be a new resource for raising funds. In 2010, 23 of the 33 Minnesota Habitat affiliates received funds from the Habitat 500 ranging from $800 to $53,069! What is the Habitat 500? Now in its 19th year, the Habitat 500 is a bicycle ride (not a race) that covers 500 miles over the course of seven days (an average of 71 miles per day). Each rider raises funds from family, friends, businesses and church groups and designates the Habitat for Humanity affiliates they wish to support (both locally and around the world). We limit participation to 135 riders. Each rider is required to raise a minimum of $900, but the average amount raised is nearly $2,600 per rider. Each year is a new route; we tour around the Midwest (mostly Minnesota) visiting Habitat affiliates, Habitat worksites, and Habitat homeowners along the way (in addition to roadside attractions). Habitat affiliates serve as our local hosts for overnight stays. A key component of the ride is to raise awareness about the need for decent, safe, affordable housing. In this regard, we are in contact with all forms of media to generate coverage and we find the ride is a very attractive story for newspapers, radio, tv, cable, etc.— we bring a lot of excitement wherever we go. HFH-MN took over the coordination of the ride in 2002. Funds raised in the years since then have consistently grown from $225,000 to over $335,000. Since 2002, over $2.5 million has been raised through the bike ride with over half of that being distributed to 32 of the 33 Minnesota Habitat affiliates. On average, just 4% of the funds raised are used to cover the costs of the ride, thus $0.96 of each $1.00 raised by the Habitat 500 goes to support the mission of Habitat for Humanity. This is due to the strong volunteer base and donations of food and other supplies. Ride costs are all inclusive from staff salaries to supplies to rental fees. Sponsorships and rider registration fees offset total ride costs and the remaining costs are covered from funds raised by riders.
To get a taste of this excitement,
see all the details at the
Habitat 500 web
site. Habitat for Humanity of Minnesota |
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