2025 Charity Overview

The Ride for Refuge is a family-friendly cycling and walking fundraiser rich in community buy-in and meaningful activity. It is national in vision but local in impact - each local charity partner is fundraising to raise general operating funds in support of their programs.

Charity partners raise money in the RIDE by:

• recruiting teams of participants to register and fundraise

• cultivating local businesses to financially sponsor the event

• planning a ride/walk event with meal to celebrate the success of the campaign

At the end of the campaign, all the donation and sponsor revenue is reconciled and totalled. Blue Sea Foundation then send your charity an EFT based on how much you raised (see financial details below). The more your campaign raises, the higher your grant will be. Last year, the average RIDE charity raised over $32,000.

RIDE charity partners benefit by working closely with our experienced team of P2P experts while accessing Blue Sea’s national brand, fundraising ecosystem and training programs. The Ride for Refuge is operated under agreement with Blue Sea Foundation. Blue Sea works with 300+ Canadian charities through our two other national events: Coldest Night of the Year and The Grand Parade. Together they have raised more than $113 million since 2004.

Campaign Essentials

Above all else, The Ride for Refuge is a fundraiser. A lot of good community buzz and awareness could happen as a result of running the RIDE, but not if it's unsuccessful in raising money. That's why fundraising is our focus.

The event happens after the fundraising is done. Before then, we'll spend a lot of time training you, your team, and the participants who sign up. We'll teach you how to ask, ask again, and say thank you afterward. We provide a lot of quality fundraising and sponsorship resources in support.

Recruiting team captains is the key to your event and is the leading indicator of your potential success. Team Captains bring the connections, people, and money you want. During our training sessions, we'll show you how to build a qualified prospect list and have the right person on your team ask the right way.

Read More about Why Team Captains Matter on our blog.

Sponsorship Essentials

Sponsor Cultivation is the icing on your event cake and a valuable opportunity for you. Many partners see 10% or more of their final campaign total represented by financial sponsorship, along with a host of goods and services support as well.

Sponsorship is different from a charitable donation in that the business receives recognition for their contribution. Of course, each sponsor offers the rich potential of seeing additional teams of fundraisers join from the very businesses that just wrote a cheque. Like your campaign training, our sponsorship training will help you navigate this well.

Event Essentials

• When: Saturday, October 4, 2025.

• What: The Ride for Refuge event is a 10km cycling route (looped twice for cyclists who choose 20km) and a 5km walk with a light meal for participants when they return.

• Where: Each RIDE charity partner will work with Blue Sea to pick a start/finish location that best supports the size of their expected event.

• Who: Everyone is welcome! Participants range from toddlers with their parents to energetic youth and seniors. There is a place for everyone to participate and fundraise in the Ride for Refuge.

• Registration: All participants sign up online at www.rideforrefuge.org. There is no registration fee. After participants register online, they can set up their fundraising page, add a photo, video, message, and email potential donors for support.

• Fundraising: All are encouraged to fundraise a modest amount ($150 adult/$75 youth). When they do, participants qualify for the RIDE T-shirt as a thank you for fundraising. Donors are receipted automatically by email for donations of $20 or more.

A successful peer-to-peer fundraising event needs to hit a certain level of fundraising success to be sustainable.

There needs to be enough buzz and excitement afterward for the event to maintain momentum and frankly, to be worth your time and ours. So, these are the minimum expectations we have for each charity location:

• 15 team captains recruited

• 75+ participants or more

• $2000 sponsorship sales

• $20,000 in total revenue, including sponsorship.

• Minimum Goals: All charity partners are required to set a minimum $20,000 goal and maintain that annually in order to remain part of the program. While many locations do great immediately, it can take two years to find your groove - keep the long view in mind, that's where your greatest return on investment will be.

• Management Buy-In: Your CEO and leadership team must be 100% supportive about your involvement in the RIDE - they must actively participate, fundraise, and champion the event.

• Event Leadership: You need to have a solid event director in place who is reasonably tech-savvy and communicative, and has the time, energy, credibility, and drive to lead a team well. (We estimate your team will work 200 hours in total from May-October.)

• Supporting Team: One person can't do it all! You'll need to surround your event leader with a supporting team of staff or willing volunteers.

• Trust Us: Charities must comply with all operational guidelines and staff instructions, and be actively engaged with our Campaign, Sponsorship, and Events reps throughout the campaign. Responsive and consistent communication by phone, email, or text is a must.

• Focus: We expect you to prioritize the event without any competing peer-to-peer or large group fundraising events around the event. In most cases, that window is from 60 days prior to 30 days after. Exceptions can be made in cases where an existing event is winding down, or where a large charity can demonstrate it has the capacity to run multiple events - talk to us!

As You'd Expect

• CRA Status: You must be in good standing with the CRA and have strong financial management or board oversight.

Blue Sea removes the start-up challenges and ongoing investment risk of creating your own p2p event by offering a proven, ready-to-go event that leverages our national brand, systems, and peer-to-peer fundraising and event management expertise with your on-the-ground leadership and community buy-in.

Leadership

• Focus: Peer-to-peer fundraising events are what we do - exclusively. We believe in their unique ability to build buzz, momentum, and the bottom line for our charity partners. The Ride for Refuge is a year-round effort for our team and we begin planning for next year’s event the moment the current campaign ends. This focus assures a relevant, vibrant, and ready-to-go event for our partners when we renew their participation each year.

• Campaign Accountability: Your recruitment, fundraising, and promo efforts will be tracked weekly and supported by webinars, emails, 1-on-1 coaching, and site visits. We are actively involved in your event from beginning to end.

• Sponsorship Support: The Ride for Refuge has an excellent sponsorship program and a full-time sponsorship specialist to support your community business sponsorship sales.

• Training: We provide a helpful written online event guide, live and video webinar training, and weekly emails and blogs. All of this is augmented by on demand 1-on-1 coaching from our experienced reps.

• Operations: RIDE is overseen by a joint team of experienced event and campaign leaders and supported by our energetic Blue Sea team who work with you to ensure a safe, fun, and successful event.

• Customer Service: All participant, donor, sponsor, and charity customer service questions are responded to promptly by our Participant & Donor Support team.

Systems

• WAVES Portal: We’ve built a proprietary online event management portal called WAVES which provides you with a full view of your current (and historical) recruitment, fundraising, and event campaign progress, along with key event management tools and resources.

• Historical Data: Within WAVES, returning charities will benefit from having long-term campaign metrics and data to access year after year.

• Guide: We provide a detailed online guide for all charity partners to access in WAVES.

• Sponsorship: We've created a highly successful sponsorship system within WAVES to help you successfully recruit, feature, and activate your sponsorship sales efforts throughout the campaign.

• Volunteers: In WAVES, we provide you with a proprietary online volunteer management system that allows you to track, assign, and communicate well with your volunteers.

• Website: Our website features easy navigation for registration, participant tools, scoreboards, promotional videos and PDFs, fundraising hub, resources, and training. Each charity partner has a unique location URL to promote from.

• FundHub: The event is powered by an easy-to-use online participant fundraising system that allows participants to set up their fundraising page, post pics and messages, email donors and teammates, and manage their campaign throughout.

• Financial: Blue Sea collects and receipts all online and cash or cheque donations made payable to “Ride for Refuge” of $20 or more. We also invoice all financial sponsors directly as well.

Promotion

• Brand: We provide an annual refresh of the event theme which is reflected on our site, in tools, and promo items like posters, collateral, and more.

• Website: The Ride for Refuge is hosted on a very fast and secure website that is visually striking and easy to navigate.

• Charity Page: Every charity partner will have a unique location campaign page and URL that will feature your brand, messaging, contact, event details, and key campaign metrics (including fundraising goal, progress, teams, and participants).

• Posters Plus: Each location receives a generous allocation of charity-branded posters, postcards, and generic bookmarks to distribute as needed (and other goodies to support your promotion efforts).

• Online Tools: We provide a creative inventory of online promo tools, including logo packs, social media images, charity brochures, PowerPoint slides, and more.

• Social Media: RIDE will be very active online with boosted posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin that are highly shareable and fun to engage with.

• Communication: During the campaign, The Ride for Refuge will regularly email participants with generic updates and reminders about the coming event.

Event Management

• Event Plan: We take the decision work out of creating an event plan. Every RIDE location across Canada has the same core event plan, feel, and look. Of course, you’ll be able to bring some local flair to your location, but know that the basic plan is already there for you to follow.

• Insurance: We provide $10,000,000 in liability insurance for the event while also requiring each charity to provide proof of insurance on application.

• Event Supplies: We provide many event-related tools including event signage, safety vests, and support vehicle flags, etc.

• Maps: We'll train you on how to create excellent routes and map them out for review and approval. Once they get the thumbs up, they'll be uploaded to your location page for viewing/printing.

Post-Event

• Post-Event Donations: The RIDE website will remain open for post-event online donations until October 31st. All online or cash/cheque donations must be submitted by October 31st to be included in your late November grant cheque distribution.

• Post-Event Processing: After the event, our team continues processing the many cheques that will continue to arrive. Each one is carefully reviewed and recorded to ensure qualified donations are receipted properly. Pledges that get verified post-event are receipted by email or mail 90 days after the event.

• Grants: RIDE Grants are sent via EFT's and will be forwarded the last week of November for all new charities and for renewing charities who have reported on the prior year's grant.

• Post-Event Service: Our Blue Sea team will continue to respond to and service all participant and donor-related inquiries long after the event is done.

Your primary duties in the Ride for Refuge is to focus on recruitment, fundraising, and sponsorship while overseeing event logistics and leading your event team well.

Leadership

• Event Director: Your Event Director is critical to your campaign. Often this role is shared by two people - one who administers the event and one who actively recruits and promotes.

• Team: To succeed, you'll need a team gathered around your event directors. Meet early and often for best results.

• CEO/ED: We expect that your CEO/ED will be actively recruiting and fundraising in RIDE. When senior leadership engages well, so do your staff, volunteers, and community.

Recruitment + Fundraising

• Team Captains: The key to your fundraising success is being able to recruit team captains, who in turn recruit the participants, who in turn do the fundraising.

• The average team has 5-7 participants who raise $300-400 on average so you'll need to recruit 15-18 team captains to hit your fundraising goal. All other promotion, while helpful, pales in comparison to recruitment.

• Fundraising: Our online Fundhub makes fundraising easy. We’ve also created a supporting menu of fundraising tools to support both the novice and veteran fundraiser. As stated earlier, as long as you make fundraising the focus of your event you'll be fine.

• Read more about building a culture of fundraising in your p2p event.

• Business Sponsorship: Selling business sponsorship opportunities helps launch your event with both key financial dollars and the teams/participants that get involved. We've created a system to make these efforts smooth and easy. On average, you can expect to add 10-15% in revenue with a successful community sponsorship campaign.

• Learn more about Peer-to-Peer's 'Power Couple'.

• Promotion: You'll promote your event with marketing materials we provide including posters, bookmarks, social media collateral, and promo videos.

Event Management

• Training: Take all the required training that we provide and carefully read the online guide in WAVES. This will make working with us and managing the event much easier and more successful.

• Route: You'll need a start/finish location to accommodate teams of participants, check-in, opening ceremonies, and an after-event lunch. You’ll also need to map out routes that are safe and approved by us. All locations offer a 10km cycling route and 2.5km walk route (looped twice for participants who choose 20K or 5K options).

• Lunch: Once the participants return, it’s time to celebrate and food is one of the best ways to bring your community together. You’ll need to offer a light meal or BBQ for all your participants. This provides you with time to personally greet and thank each person who has fundraised on your behalf.

• Volunteers: To manage your event safely, you’ll need 30-40 volunteers depending on how many participants you have. Some of the volunteer roles include set up team, greeters, check-in volunteers, route marshals, support vehicles, food volunteers, and clean up team. As mentioned above, our online volunteer management system will help you do a great job in this area.

Charity partners earn two sources of revenue during the event: donations and sponsorships.

• Donations: Donations raised by teams and participants fundraising include verified (1) credit card (2) Paypal (3) cheques and (4) cash. Participants may post cash and cheque donations online in their fundhub. Check out our FAQ sections to see how cash and cheque donations are processed.

• Sponsorship: Financial sponsorships sold by each charity partner are invoiced directly by Blue Sea during the event. Notice reminders are sent out every 30 days they are past due (though that's rarely much of a problem). Businesses can pay their sponsorship via credit card or cheque sent in directly to Blue Sea.

Payout Schedule

• Payout percentage is cumulative from the first dollar.

• Payout is calculated on total verified donation revenue and community sponsorships.

• Charities who sell $10,000 (or more) in financial sponsorship and have $20,000 (or more) in donations get a preferred 85% payout rate on their sponsorship total. For charity partners with multiple events please note - the sponsorship bonus is earned on an individual event (location) basis.

• All charity partner grant payments are forwarded by November 30.

• Processing fees collected by donors who elect to cover this cost when donating online are not included in charity partner revenue.

Who Pays for What?

Blue Sea pays for the event infrastructure mentioned above under What We Do. Charity partners are responsible for staff time, event day meal and snack costs, start/finish location rental and permits (as required), decorations, any local advertising (although we suggest you spend zero), incidentals and smaller miscellaneous event-day items - most of which can be sponsored. Some of our largest locations spend less than $1000 on their event.

Here's a more specific breakdown:

Event Math

Drawing from our experience operating the Coldest Night of the Year and the The Grand Parade, we're confident that you should reasonably expect to experience the following fundraising and recruitment results in your event.

Fundraising stats:

• $70: Average donation

• $350: Average fundraised per participant

• $1800: Average fundraised per team

• $2500: Average total business sponsorship per event.

Recruitment stats:

• 6: The average number of participants on a team

• 10: The percentage of youth aged 17 and under who will register

• 50: The average age of all your registered participants

• 75: The number of participants needed to make the event feel like a success

Pulling it All Together:

• $70 avg donation x 5 avg # of donations / participant = $350

• $350 avg $/participant x 5 avg participants / team = $1800

• $1800 avg $ / team x ______ (insert # of teams you'll recruit) = Your donation total

Meet a few of our friends!

Since 2010, we've been privileged to work with many charities through our three national events. We've selected a few friends for you to contact if you'd like below: