An Overview Of Our Solution
Our goal is to bring people and nonprofits together to inspire action and make protecting the planet a philanthropic priority for everyone. Our challenge is the misallocation of charitable giving to sustainability causes. Americans gave $410 billion to charities in 2017 (2.1% of GDP) & only 3% ($11.83 billion) of those gifts supported environmental causes, yet the impacts of climate change, pollution, unsustainable transportation represent trillions of dollars of losses to the economy. We all need climate resilience. How can we incentivize & inspire people to engage in solutions & give personally to climate action? We created Climate Ride after looking at the extraordinary success of charitable bike rides for cancer & disease. Climate Ride is the first organization to use this model of immersive events to create behavior change & momentum for the climate movement
- Population Impacted: 120,000
- Continent: North America
Last name
Organization type
Context Analysis
Climate Ride's theory of change is that immersive outdoor experiences & personal challenges are powerful tools for generating behavioral change to help ignite activism on climate policy, raise critical funds, & influence public opinion. With the widespread fatigue & despair over the environment, as well as the scale of the planetary challenge of climate change, many natural supporters do not to get involved. People don’t know where to start &/or they are overwhelmed by the current chaotic & dispiriting political climate. To deal with the enormity of climate change, the sustainability movement needs to mobilize new audiences on a scale like never before. Climate Ride creates opportunities for individuals to engage in a way that is uniquely positive, life-affirming, & transformational. Climate Ride participants engage their personal networks which is important for fundraising but equally important to share their story for why this movement matters to them.
Describe the technical solution you wanted the target audience to adopt
Climate Ride's theory of change is that immersive outdoor experiences & personal challenges are powerful tools for generating behavioral change to help ignite activism on climate policy, raise critical funds, & influence public opinion. With the widespread fatigue & despair over the environment, as well as the scale of the planetary challenge of climate change, many natural supporters do not to get involved. People don’t know where to start &/or they are overwhelmed by the current chaotic & dispiriting political climate. To deal with the enormity of climate change, the sustainability movement needs to mobilize new audiences on a scale like never before. Climate Ride creates opportunities for individuals to engage in a way that is uniquely positive, life-affirming, & transformational. Climate Ride participants engage their personal networks which is important for fundraising but equally important to share their story for why this movement matters to them.
Type of intervention
Describe your behavioral intervention
Our program design emphasizes sustainability & connection to nature. Ecological & psychological research points to our ‘nature deficit’ & the effect that has on how we relate to the natural world. Immersive outdoor initiatives are powerful tools for generating behavioral change that goes beyond a single event. Our events connect national parks, wildlife refuges, historical stops, sustainable businesses, & bikeways often very close to urban settings. Experiential immersion is the first part. Second, our events strengthen our ties to local ecosystems (the material), & through our group experience, bring light to our reliance on nature (the cognitive). Our rides & hikes are more than a physical challenge & getting from point A to point B. They are part of larger effort to deepen participants’ connection to local ecology, conservation, climate, & transportation issues. By bringing together business leaders, nonprofit leaders, scientists & people new to these issues & well as addressing key behavioral change topics during our expert speaker series, our post-event surveys show that people adopt behavior change as a result of interacting with Climate Ride. We survey participants to find out if participating in Climate Ride spurred them to take any action on climate (personal, locally or nationally). 64% said they took actions that included joining marches, bicycle commuting, signing petitions, getting press, meeting with representatives, joining groups, changing habits
As needed, please explain the type of intervention in more detail
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Describe your implementation
In 2008 Climate Ride began as a bike ride from New York City to Washington DC. From that first event, we developed digital tools & grassroots organizing to organize dozens of philanthropic events around the world that merge education, advocacy, & grantmaking. Climate Ride has given 519 grants totaling nearly $5 million to sustainability, conservation, & bike advocacy efforts at a local & national level. Climate Riders have pedaled over 800,000 miles & Climate Hikers have hiked over 6,000 miles for the Climate Ride cause.
With our software & support, we help Climate Ride participants reach out to hundreds of individuals via email & social media with a personal appeal to support environmental & active transportation programs & policy through Climate Ride. While 'armchair activism' is common in the environmental movement, Climate Ride participants & their supporters make a financial, emotional, & physical commitment to the cause. With the high rate of repeat participants our impact is multiplied across networks.
Moreover, Climate Ride participants share their positive outcomes & then recruit more people into the environmental movement - many of whom might otherwise stay on the sidelines. We’ve built a new community of leaders & donors across the nation who identify with the experience of being a Climate Rider. With nearly 3000 Climate Ride alumni (multiplied by their peer group), this is a growing network & part of the new wave of environmentalism combining immersion, experience, & fundraising.
Climate Ride provides online platforms for participants to continue to communicate, collaborate, & advocate after the event. Through these online platforms our beneficiary partners & participants can provide opportunities to take action on issues they learned about during the events or volunteer to support local organizations.
External connections
Our nonprofit beneficiary partners: The rides & hikes generate significant grants for more than 100 non-profit organizations each year. It’s important to note that our beneficiaries do not have to expend any resources to be part of Climate Ride. We take on all of the costs, months of planning, & risk of running these events, & then our beneficiary partners can benefit from our programming, use the funds to further their missions, & amplify the stories of participants. We share participant information with beneficiaries so that they can continue to develop these relationships.
Corporate partners: Companies have a chance to achieve their corporate social responsibility goals & inspire behavioral change internally. For example, Eileen Fisher helps fund five employees each year to do Climate Ride events. These participants bring their transformational experience back into the workplace.
Who adopted the desired behaviors and to what degree?
Here are the most recent responses from our participants when asked if they have adopted new behaviors:
“I've joined Citizen's Climate Lobby, & I've adopted some zero waste habits of one of my teammates. I am also speaking out to all my friends about the amazing folks I met on the ride & what their beneficiaries are doing for our world. I plan to meet up with a few of them on personal travels.”
“Trying to get more young people involved. Also going to & participating in climate focused events in my local area (Vermont).”
“I started reducing my use of plastic.”
“There are always more things we as individuals can do to decrease our own footprint but more importantly, there are things we can do to advocate more for the great organizations & people combatting climate change already.”
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
At Climate Ride we offset all carbon emissions related to our programs & encourage participants to research carbon offsets for their impact. As well, participants are encouraged to adopt cycling as part of a healthy & low carbon lifestyle when the return from events. You won’t see plastic cups, bottles, goodie bags or any of the throwaway waste that you typically see at sporting events. Cyclists & hikers are asked to bring their own reusable water bottles & coffee mugs. We use a low water washing station so that dishes from meals can be washed & reused after each meal. We offer plenty of non-bagged goodies, as well as drink coolers, at our snack stops, & downsize the unnecessary waste. In addition, we collect & recycle any cans & bottles that do crop up & offer composting where available. Climate Ride’s cycling jerseys are made with Primal’s Echofe’ fabric, which is sustainable & fully recyclable. The fabric even incorporates recycled coffee grounds. It is produced in a low-temperature
What were some of the resulting co-benefits?
Our grants program has a well-diversified impact. Some grants help larger environmental non-profits that have national or global programs. Many of our grants kick-start smaller charities where new capital is vital to advancing their mission.Grantees report that our grants help them to stay nimble & to respond quickly to opportunities. For example, 350.org used Climate Ride funds to amplify its Keystone XL campaign. San Francisco Bicycle Coalition reports that Climate Ride provided the capital to launch its Community Bike Build program. National Parks Conservation Association used funds to respond to energy development threats to the parks. Climate Ride helped fund Citizen Climate Lobby’s first paid staff member in Washington DC. Through Climate Ride, Glacier National Park Conservancy funded solar panels on the National Park Visitors Center in Glacier NP which see 3 million visitors each summer.
Sustainability
In ten years, we have successfully operated Climate Ride without significant underwriting & have a sustainable business model. We believe that with significant underwriting we could scale Climate Ride very rapidly bringing in thous&s of participants. Each year, through our Annual Fund we raise additional funds to support our programming & scholarships. However, to grow we need to direct more organizational funding to building national awareness of Climate Ride. Most immersive event programming operated by health & disease organizations begin with significant underwriting to market & engage people to participate. (I.e. the Aids LifeCycle began with $1 million in underwriting. Pelotonia, a hugely successful cancer organization in Ohio began
Return on investment
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How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The Climate Ride program is replicable across the U.S. & internationally. We are also able to scale our events from 20-200 people, depending on the location. This could grow as we develop new events & experiences. Multi-day or one-day engagements are possible. Imagine Climate Walk, Climate Run, Climate Sail, Climate Dive, Climate Ski, & Climate Climb. Because our beneficiary grants program accommodates local, regional & national organizations, we can create local impact wherever our events go.