Lessons for Life: Big Ride for Africa
The Brief: A future-proof strategy for growth
With a successful 4 year history, Lessons for Life were looking for some expertise to help strategically review how they could refresh and grow their European corporate fundraising event over the next 5 years.
Maximizing their corporate partnerships, and broadening and deepening participation, were key to realising their target of increasing average fundraising two-fold.
A consistent and sociable experience
Originally a series of Europe-wide A-B bikes rides that culminated for a finale party in the ‘host’ city’s offices, we advised a move to a single location event where participants would instead take on A-A routes, returning to a picturesque event basecamp to eat, sleep, network and party each evening.
We suggested that The Big ‘Ride’ was extended to runners, introducing a half marathon and duathlon option for those less serious about lycra. We also recommended a review of the event’s assets, segmenting them into meaningful tiers of packages and fun activations to revive their offering to Corporate partners and enrich the participant experience.
Future host countries have big shoes to fill
The stunning 14th-century baroque palace of Ehreshoven, just outside of Cologne welcomed over 400 participants for the 5th edition of this 2 day / 3 night event.
Recruitment was up 16%, and Fundraising increased to £1.2m. All Corporate sponsors increased their contributions, totalling a 75% uplift in donations and each took up on-site activations including a King of the Mountain’s timed hill climbed, a well-being kit for all campers and a motivational talk from a Team GB Olympic cyclist.
The post-event survey returned an unprecedented Net Promoter Score of 84 when answering the question “How likely is it that you would recommend this event to a friend or colleague?” (average c.50)
