Hey everyone,

I hear about charity rides all the time, but how do they work? Like, I understand how rides work, but how are they for charity? Do you have to pay a fee to ride with the group or do you get sponsors or how do these things go? A friend of mine mentioned he like to start one, but he has no experience with anything like that. Who here has rode in one before?

Basically you start with an organization you'd like to sponsor and have other donate to this organization, like my group we support the Fisher House and the VFW Homeless Vets and various other Veteran Organizations... they have goals set up to raise a certain amount of money for a certain time period. There are a lot of ways to make charity rides happen. There are several groups that name themselves according to their charity like: BACA: Bikers Against Child Abuse, BASH: Bikers Against Statewide Hunger. These organizations go around collecting money for their cause and then host a bike run with a riding fee and usually in exchange for the fee the rider gets a riding pin, tee shirt or patch with the event name and date on it.
Research, research, research and more research... it can be done.

Ridden in precisely one. Hate riding thru beautiful countryside & concentrating on the wheels of other motorcycles. Have shown up at quite a few, dropped off my toys and(or) check, looked at the other motorcycles & ridden off.

Yeh, generally some group, wants to publicize their organization, Legion riders, USMC Toys-For-Tots, local HOG chapter, whatever AND solicit funds or toys or both for their cause.
Worked w/ the Legion Riders on a few and they are a lot of work - if you want a lot of details I can help.

There is always a fee for entering, in the case of the USMC Toys-For-Tots there is a fee + a toy.
Most of the time we solicit sponsors who provide advertising & have freebies to give the riders

Brittany,

Yes to al;l those items you mentioned for fundraising. Most charity rides charge an admission to the event and then raise additional money via raffle tickets, auctions, etc. Sponsors are great too - you can get them to donate to your charity in exchange for advertising their business at the event. You can also get businesses to donate the raffle and auction items.

Most of these events donate 100% of the profits to the charity - after the cost of putting the event on including venue charges, advertising, food, and whatever else you have to pay for. If you have the time and do a lot of advance work, you can get most of that donated too!

Thank guys, this is awesome, I'll pass it along.