5 of the best lessons you can learn for any passion project.

Here’s what I learned from organising a 1175km relay run across Zimbabwe to raise funds and awareness for two charities trying to save the African Wild Dog from extinction. It was by far the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done.

If you’ve ever thought about doing your own passion project, hopefully these lessons inspire you to take a leap yourself into something that might just change your life and that of others . . .

1) Your plan

When I was a young boy, some school friends and I ran from the southern border of Zimbabwe to the northern border to raise funds for African Wild Dog conservation. It was an incredible adventure.

20 years later with African Wild Dogs still under threat of extinction I decided to take action to help the people working to save them.

My vision was to replicate the original run, the same route, for the same cause. But, as I started to spell out the plan to all involved, I was sad to find strong resistance to the proposed route, which would have seen us run south to north again.

Things in Zimbabwe have changed dramatically in 20 years and safety was now a major concern with increased traffic, poor road maintenance and poor driving standards.

Devastated as I was to be reshaping my vision, after taking on board the feedback, I made what turned out to be one of the best decisions of the entire project. A safer and quieter route from east to west was mapped out, rather poetically, it meant we now connected directly to both charities we were supporting.  

It’s important to realise that sometimes in life even if you have a vision of how you want something to happen, you need to be flexible enough to allow it to be reshaped and improved, often thanks to the suggestions of others.

 The take away - *Don’t lose sight of your vision but flexibility can often mean a better outcome in the long-run*

2) Your people:

When running a passion project you are the driving force from start to finish. This is exhilarating and exciting, sometimes daunting and often exhausting. So, just like in business, it’s extremely important to surround yourself with good people. Ideally you want to involve those who have a different skill set to you.

I was lucky enough to work with an experienced logistics whizz Andrew Shoesmith who, within minutes of ending our Skype calls, would email meeting minutes to all involved. Immediately everyone was accountable and knew what needed to be done by the next call.

Most importantly though, look for people with passion! Passion fuels passion; it’s what gets people through the highs and lows of doing something challenging. It’s inspiring to see and to be around and has a way of creating opportunities where there were seemingly none.

The Take Away - * Surround yourself with people who are skilled in areas different to you and who have a passion that is infectious*

The below video was filmed before the run, we had hoped to get 5000 views, so you can image how excited we were when we hit 25 000 views and climbing.

3) Your support

There will be family and friends that support you, no matter what you do. These people are like gold, especially in the early stages when their support both emotional and financial is not only encouraging, it’s often critical.

I spoke to a close friend of mine regularly for more than a year leading up to the event, updating him on the highs and lows of the project. He runs his own very successful business, yet he did not donate a single dollar. For a while I was deeply upset and couldn’t understand why someone I knew and loved had not made even the smallest of contributions. 

In stark contrast to this, a few days before we started the run I had a phone call from a complete stranger. He said ‘Andrew I’ve heard about your project and I think it’s fantastic. My company would like to donate a motorbike for you to use as a support vehicle during your run, and at the end of the run you can donate it to either of the charities you’re supporting’. 

Sure enough a brand new motorbike was delivered to our base; I was absolutely floored by this act of kindness.

The donated motorcycle being used by a scout tracking African Wild Dogs.

The Take Away - *You never know where your support will or won’t come from. Either way you will be surprised but don’t take it personally*

4) Your cause

At the end of a presentation about the project to a digital marketing expert she explained that she had never seen African Wild Dogs before and so found it hard to get excited about it. I was beginning to think she’s not going to help. 

However, she went on to say that when I talked about how support for our project was going to help kids from extremely poor families to have an education experience all about conservation, that was her trigger (unbeknownst to me she is a mother of six girls!).

She connected me with the brilliant people from Frame who very kindly donated their web development skills to put together Running for Wild Dogs.

Unless what you do resonates with others, they will find it hard to understand your cause. 

The Take Away - *People connect better with people, so whatever passion project you work on, tell the human story behind it*

5) Your resolve

In the end I found the hardest part wasn’t having to run six consecutive half marathons; it wasn’t having to run in 36 degrees (154Fahrencheit); and it wasn’t dealing with major logistics issues (carrying food, fuel and water for 45 people hundreds of kilometres across Zimbabwe is no joke).

The hardest part was dealing with the tax department and people’s perceptions of making a donation to organisations in Africa – that it was going to end up in someone’s back pocket rather than benefitting the cause intended. Unfortunately, the reality is that the poor behaviour of some has greatly impacted the ability to raise money for legitimate causes.

If not for strong resolve and belief in the cause it would have been far easier to walk away.

The Take Away - *If you truly and deeply believe in your cause you will find more reasons to make it happen than not. When things are going wrong and it feels like everything is falling apart, remind yourself that it’s too important for it not to happen. Dig in, grit your teeth and keep going!

The end result

If you have started a passion project or are thinking about doing one, I hope these lessons might help. In my case, while we didn’t raise as much money as we had initially set out to, we completed the run and totalled more than $20 000 in donations. Perhaps more importantly, we raised vital awareness about an animal many people haven’t even heard of and we shone a much-needed light on two organisations doing an incredible job of trying to save them.

I’d love to hear if you have you started a passion project? How is it going?

For more information on this project visit our Facebook page: Running for Wild Dogs

Crowd Funding Platform used: Chuffed and our campaign is Running for Wild Dogs

Check out this video: Running for Wild Dogs

Instagram: @wild_dog_warriors

To find our more about our partner charities please see Painted Dog Conservation and African Wildlife Conservation Fund

The original run in 1996. Please excuse the terrible running outfits! (I'm the last one on the right)