MEMBERSHIP IN ACTION
CLIMATE RIDE: SAVING THE PLANET ON THE BIKE TRIP OF YOUR DREAMS B Y
K E V I N
Y
ou don’t need to know me for long before you discover my love for bikes and learn about my next big bike adventure and my deep passion for sustainability. As such, it was a pleasure to sit down with Climate Ride founder Caeli Quinn and learn more about how her organization empowers climate advocates while building support for sustainability-centered organizations like the League. Caeli describes Climate Ride as “a community of adventurers dedicated to protecting the planet. We unite advocacy, action, and philanthropy, inspiring people to work together toward a sustainable future. With the environmental crisis, the hardest part is often figuring out how to get involved. At Climate Ride, we’ve created positive and inclusive events that are good for you and good for the planet. We help you discover and explore what you are capable of and turn that passion into support for environmental and active transportation grantees. Together, we bring people and nonprofits together to inspire action and make protecting the planet a philanthropic priority for everyone.”
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D E K K I N G A
The way it works is as simple as it is genius: participants register to attend one of Climate Ride’s professionally-hosted and developed bike tours, featuring some of the most dreamed about bicycling destinations throughout the world. Riders then commit to raising at least the donation requirement for their adventure and use a peer-to-peer fundraising platform to rally support for the non-profit of their choice among Climate Ride’s partner organizations. Since 2008, Climate Riders have contributed more than $7 million to over 100 non-profit organizations, the majority fueling local bicycling and environmental advocacy groups. This year, Climate Ride is proud to be featuring a dollar-for-dollar match for all charity partners, aiming to contribute more than $5 million to climate advocacy this year alone. While the climate crisis presents an existential threat to the entirety of the planet, this area of concern is still largely untouched by philanthropy. In 2019, Americans gave $449 billion to charity—and only 3% of that total went to environmental organizations (including animal welfare organizations).