Am I the only one riding (second time) that feels that when someone wishes to make a donation to a team that the amount should be calculated as a team total? This according to all of my team consider that the total amount of funds received should be divided to ensure equality amongest all team members. Example. If one member of a given team is fortunate enough to have so many contacts that the minimum of $2500. required to participate is achieved so that future donations should be spread out to the other team members. Wouldn't this be so frustrating is just prior the ride a given team member was short whereas the balance of their team had achieved the minimum. Imagine how they would feel. Let's be fair and modify the accounting program with the Ride. I know that when I have my minimum I would want to share excess funds to my team members to allow maximum contribution. What can we do to make the change.
Although I agree I do think that the greater the participants the greater the awareness of cancer cure as well as check-ups would be increased. I'm not saying to lower the required amount required per participant but merely to spread the base amongest the team members and allow more to become involved. It should not all be about the money.
Here is my response-based on now my 6th year of fundraising-between the Walk and the Ride...
My personal donors are split into 2 groups: 1-My brother & sister's friends & family who give in their memory each year. 2-My friends & family who give to support me in my ¨journey¨whether it be in my training, encourage me in my daily life which sometimes includes grief and discouragement, and of course, my quest to do something to beat cancer and at the same time, better the facilities at the Jewish General Hospital.
In the past I've been the one with the bigger amounts on my teams-for good reason, and I did, when it came near the end and some of my team-mates hadn't made their quota-asked my contacts to give to them...alas to no avail-they would keep adding on to mine. So for me-almost all of my donations are personal and my contacts have made that quite clear to me. Heck-the last couple of years for the Walk we even set up a profile for my sister-in her memory-and she was making more money then some of the walkers on the team!! (Heh,heh-she would have appreciated the humor.)
When I reached my goal last year - I asked my contacts to please direct their donations to my help my hubby reach his goal and they did. I don't think it should be automatically divided - some teams are very big - and it would mean some people who worked very hard would share their donations with others who may have done very little.
They need to make it easier to donate to a team. We made a team of coworkers, and we wanted for fundraising at work to be a team endeavor... WOW is it ever complicated! The team donation form is not user friendly, and the french and english versions are slightly different, causing much confusion. Team fundraising would be INFINITELY simpler if donors had the option of donating online to either an individual or an entire team... then let the teams sort out how they want to manage their fundraising!!!
again - if all your teammates get along and agree that's one thing. If one teammate is doing all the work and the others are benefiting it might not be so agreeable. Every person needs to go out and spread the word about the ride and the cause - not only to people at work but people in their lives outside of work... Hopefully at your workplace people can figure out who is in need of the most funds and help fill them up once the others have already met their minimum... I don't expect them to change the system for this year so you might have to work it out amongst yourselves... Don't let this glitch turn you off. And there is no harm trying to call the Ride office and asking if there is an easier solution... But I'm thinking if it's been this way all these years for the walk and now the ride There probably isn't an easier way or they would have set it up already...
For now, our strategy is... - we distribute the team donation forms with our names filled in ask people to fill out the form with only the TOTAL they wish to donate. - we collect the forms from our coworkers - once a month (or so) we take a look at all the forms collected and distribute the donations on the form to be even and fair and make sure the donor receives their tax receipt, then mail it in. - as we get closer, we will likely be a little less even if anyone is at risk of not reaching the minimum for participation.
(we're a small team, so there's little risk of drama... but from the outset we agreed that each person was responsible for raising a minimum of $1000 from their personal network, ie not coworkers)
It took us about a week of debating and speaking with the ride office to get it all sorted out, and there are some details in the team donation process that could be REALLY simple to change (ie, if you donate $50 to a team of 10 people, and decide to divide up your donation equally between the members, the system sees your gift as 10 individual donations of $5, and you don't get a tax receipt! Also the english form says write the team name on the cheque, and the french form says write the participant name and number on the cheque... that caused some confusion!)
Anyways, the team donation drama isn't a deal breaker, and certainly won't keep me from participating in future years or from enjoying the experience, but there's room for improvement. Our solution is the simplest we could come up with, but still requires a fair amount of work on our part to keep the process as simple as possible for the people giving. It's just that as a "corporate team" that isn't 100% funded by the company, we can't have 10 people running around asking the same people for donations! It would frustrate otherwise generous donors!!
