What's Choose a Challenge all about?
CONSIDERING TRAVELING WITH US, WORKING WITH US OR PARTNERING WITH US?
Then this article is for you.
As a company we’ve always been proud of providing a safe, ethical and socially responsible adventure travel experience. Alongside this, being able to make a huge difference to our partner charities both in financial and publicity terms is exactly what we were founded to accomplish. At the heart of things, it's a pretty simple concept; fundraise twice the cost of an adventure travel experience and challenge yourself while raising money for others. But nothing is ever this simple and very deliberately each one of our charity and adventurer partnerships is unique.
Now, as our third year of US operations comes to an end and we begin to make our first steps outside the student market, I thought it would be a good idea to address the basic building blocks of how this all works and why we do what we do. So without further ado;
How does this work?
We get this one all the time but it’s actually quite simple. We work with a variety of nonprofit partners in a few of different ways to provide opportunities to raise funds and spread awareness for their causes through adventure travel. We do this predominantly by running international adventure challenges which are funded by fundraising targets. These fundraising targets are designed to be twice the cost of the trip, meaning that for every dollar going towards the cost of the challenge, an extra dollar is going towards charity.
Are you a non-profit?
No. We are a social enterprise working with a number of wonderful not for profit 501 (c) registered charities with the aim of raising millions of dollars more in funding for their unique missions. Our ability to produce, market and organize industry leading adventure travel experiences allowed our teams to raise in excess of $25 million for charities worldwide.
How do you work with non-profits?
We focus on working together in a way which suits the aims and goals of the partner organisation. Normally this is a four step process;
- Develop a Strategy.
- Promote and Recruit for a Challenge.
- Provide Participant Support & Top Notch Challenge Delivery (including PR)
- Build a legacy.
How do you choose the non-profits you work with?
Normally we are approached directly or are referred by another of our partners ogranizations. However when we look to select new student partners we do have a few requirements in place mainly we look to make sure the charity has capacity to support student fundraisers and that the cause fits well around our current partners while still allowing for the growth of all our current partners.
How are these experiences paid for?
Climbing Kilimanjaro, trekking to Machu Picchu or hiking through the Himalayas are not budget experiences. Our pricing structure however aims to open up these world class adventures to anyone. Our trips are predominantly funded through a fundraising target (of which 50% goes towards covering your trip costs) and a registration fee. The registration fee is the only cost you, as a fundraiser, are required to pay yourself and these range from $390 to $590 and are always able to be split in two and paid over a couple of months. Beyond this, we try and keep any extra charges minimal and disclose all expected costs to you in our in-depth briefing packs. In saying this, for all of our trips, you will need to have a passport and accompanying documentation, personal equipment and personal travel insurance which will come at an additional cost.
Who are your trip leaders?
Our trip leaders are our ambassadors spread out at across the US, whose role is to act as our local ambassadors for our charity challenges. They work recruit for one specific charity on a specific trip and can recruit teammates to join the Choose a Challenge community, organize fundraising events or help meet and greet teams at the airport. They are normally college students, professionals looking to bring a CSR event to their organizations of full time fundraisers heading up the program. They normally are rewarded for their efforts by receiving a discounted or free space on the trip.
Do people actually hit their fundraising goals?
Yes. In fact over 12,000 people have done just that and taken on one of our challenges for which we maintain a 90%+ satisfaction rating. Of course, not 100% of participants will meet their fundraising goals, which definitely makes it part of the challenge as well. However, in our 10+ years of operation we’ve come up with a number of ways to remedy this from fundraising guides & advice through to deferred trips, and paying more yourself to lower your fundraising goal.
How much of your profits go to charity?
None. We are not your normal adventure travel company and we are serious about making a difference. As such, we don’t pledge any of our profits to charity. We find this to be confusing and it’s often unclear how much is going to charity. Instead our model is much simpler: 50% of everything raised through our program goes directly to our charity partners. It gets even better than this however, because once your fundraising goal is achieved, 100% of anything raised over this amount goes straight to and remains with the charity as well.
Are your trips achievable?
Our challenges are exactly that— a challenge. From marathons to mountain climbing, taking on an adventure with Choose a Challenge is not going to be a walk in the park. However we provide everything you need to smash your challenge. Following industry leading safety and preparation standards, our success and finishing rate across our marathons and hikes are incredibly high as is demonstrated by the fact that 98% of our 2019 challengers would recommend the experience to a friend.
What sort of time commitment is this?
This depends. We’ve been told that the commitment levels to succeed in our program as a nonprofit best translates to the workload of a full time member of staff per 100 challenge fundraisers. Our first year teams are normally between 20-30 people so around 10 hours work a week. Of course this will vary throughout the year. As a participant the workload varies dramatically depending on your fitness and fundraising experience.
How do I bring Choose a Challenge to my organisation?
See our current trip offerings for our school based teams here. If you don’t see your school on our list get in contact with us and we’ll see what we can do and if you are looking to get involved in one of our non student treks just message me.
Are you a responsible travel provider?
We’d like to think so and our multitude of awards, accreditations, and professional memberships suggest we’re not alone in this thinking. We are currently cleaning out the top spot in our trophy cabinet as we work towards becoming a registered B Corporation by the end of 2019 as well as aiming to be Carbon Neutral by 2021. But for the moment you can read about the numerous ways we strive to be safe, ethical, environmentally friendly and socially responsible here.
Can I join the team?
Yes, probably. If you are over 18 and under 65 we’ll try and find a way. Our current open trips are predominantly for college students but we accept alumni, young professionals, and college-aged adventurers from all walks of life and have a few bespoke trips in the pipeline designed with a bit more of a unique twist. Our flight inclusive packages all leave from NYC so be prepared to get to the big city yourself if you plan on joining us from the get go. Similarly you can book your own flights and meet us in-country if you are a west coast adventurer and still want to take on an adventure with us.
Is this safe?
Adventure travel is inherently dangerous but we exist to make these experiences as safe and accessible as possible. We do a lot of background work prior to even opening a trip for registrations. This includes risk assessing the challenge personally, following the procedures laid out in BS8848, and of course, packaging up all best practices and safety advice into an easy to digest format prior to travel. Our most challenging events have expedition doctors attached to them while all of our events have knowledgable, first aid trained guides leading the way. Our military grade emergency and crisis management plan is reviewed annually and live tested 2-3 times a year to ensure that in the case of a real emergency you’ll be in safe hands.
We also follow the advice of the US State Department in monitoring the ongoing stability of the regions in which we operate and of course ensure all adventurers have comprehensive travel insurance in place before being allowed to begin their challenge.
How big is the team?
We get this one quite often. In terms of the core HQ, we’re smaller than you think fluctuating between about 10-20 full time team members across our bases in London and NYC. In fact, at the time of typing, the US team consists of myself; Simon (heading up management and business development), Lucie & Mike on Marketing, Gabby on Care and Support, Sam on Operations, Ben on Sales and Development and we’ve just had Micayla and Hunter finish their Grad Placements with us.
I think most people think we are much bigger than we are, however it’s our wider community which allows us to have the impact we do ranging from our network of Campus Leaders, Brand Ambassadors, In Country Operatives, Medical Officers, 24/7 Emergency Phone Line Operators, Local Partners and Guides. In fact our community works together so well that we’ve been named commercial partner of the year on multiple occasions at the National Student Fundraising Conference and in 2019 scored an combined satisfaction score of 9.73 out of 10 when our challengers were asked to rate their local support teams, Choose a Challenge in country staff and degree to which they felt problems were dealt with by our care and support team throughout their experience.
Why not just do this trip myself?
You could do but you'd be hard pressed to find a better value trip with the same support, safety and quality features built in. If you are a charity looking at running your own challenge events, then contact us to see what extra value we can bring to the process.
Is this voluntourism?
No. There is nothing wrong with voluntourism when it’s done correctly but it’s not what we do. Voluntourism is usually defined as volunteers contributing their time to work for organizations or causes outside their respective home countries. We’re a little different, in fact the service element of your challenge is done in the fundraising prior to even stepping foot on the plane and often these funds raised are for domestic causes. The challenge itself is purely a physical and mental test, a pay off for your hard work and off course the challenge you’ve been sponsored to complete.
Will this work for my charity, school or organisation?
Get in contact and we'll tell you. ;)
I posted a similar article to this on the Choose a Challenge USA blog at www.chooseachallenge.org/blog/your-questions-answered-how-does-choose-a-challenge-work.