I climbed Iztaccihuatl and El Pico de Orizaba in 2009 for Big City Mountaineers (BCM)through their Summit for Someone (SFS) program. I'd heard about the program a couple years before but decided not to do it because the fundraising goal was daunting. With BCM, you accept a fundraising goal that you must reach 60 days prior to your climb. If you do not reach the goal, they charge your card with the remaining balance but you have until 30 days after your climb to continue fundraising. Any additional fundraising you do is credited to your card at the end of the 30 days. My goal was $7500 and I ended up raising $8182.

I identify with the BCM cause because I am actively involved with youth programs in Fort Worth including Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, PTA, YMCA, and Fort Worth Youth Soccer. As a Scout leader, I have seen the impact that the outdoor experience can have on young people. It is important that we expose our youth to the outdoors so they can understand it is a special place they can enjoy so they can protect it. The BCM program focuses on removing the youth for a brief period from the hubub to allow them to focus on themselves, meet people they might not have met otherwise, and to become a part of a working team on a weeklong backpacking or canoeing trip.

The climb was my first international climb and 2 of the climbers were SFS and 2 were paying clients. One of the paying clients had climbed previously for SFS. The climb was guided by Kurt Wedberg of Sierra Mountaineering International and was about what I had expected for an international guided climb. Kurt made sure that we were exposed to the culture and history of Mexico in addition to the climbing experience.

Most of my fundraising was done through corporate and personal donations. I identified people and business owners I felt would be sympathetic to the cause of "guiding urban teens outdoors" and spoke wiith them directly. Most of these people were familiar with me and my climbing activities so it was easy to get into the conversation when they asked "Hey, what's your next climb?" I had pennants printed with the SFS logo and the company's logo and I carried them the entire trip, including summit photos with the banners. I then delivered the banners to the business owners as an expression of my gratitude.

The one fundraising event I put on was a pub crawl through downtown Fort Worth. The timing was awful because it conflicted with high school graduations and a George Strait concert at the new Cowboys Stadium. I asked for donations from the pubs to which I would send participants and asked participants to pay $20 to join. Participants were responsible for their own bar tabs. I then developed a scavenger hunt list based on items that could be found in the individual pubs as well as having participants take silly photos of themselves (such as finding 4 other people and being an air band). When participants found an item on the list, a group leader (I sent them out in groups) would give them a ticket which they could drop into a bag for for the various prizes that I had solicited from local businesses. participants coould either spread their tickets among multiple prizes or they could dump all of their tickets onto a single prize. I also had t-shirts donated and printed to commemorate the event.

The hardest part for me was balancing the additional time demands of fundraising while training for an international mountaineering expedition.

Was it hard work? Yes. Would I do it again? Definitely.

I'm moving to the LA area and, if I can accrue enough vacation time, I'd like to participate as an adult volunteer with BCM to see the dollars I raised at work.

DukeJH wrote:I climbed Iztaccihuatl and El Pico de Orizaba in 2009 for Big City Mountaineers (BCM)through their Summit for Someone (SFS) program. I'd heard about the program a couple years before but decided not to do it because the fundraising goal was daunting. With BCM, you accept a fundraising goal that you must reach 60 days prior to your climb. If you do not reach the goal, they charge your card with the remaining balance but you have until 30 days after your climb to continue fundraising. Any additional fundraising you do is credited to your card at the end of the 30 days. My goal was $7500 and I ended up raising $8182.

Sounds like one hell of a scam. Almost as bad as the MS150 bicycle events where they send you to collections if you don't come up with a minimum pledge. Some 'charity'

nhluhr wrote:

DukeJH wrote:I climbed Iztaccihuatl and El Pico de Orizaba in 2009 for Big City Mountaineers (BCM)through their Summit for Someone (SFS) program. I'd heard about the program a couple years before but decided not to do it because the fundraising goal was daunting. With BCM, you accept a fundraising goal that you must reach 60 days prior to your climb. If you do not reach the goal, they charge your card with the remaining balance but you have until 30 days after your climb to continue fundraising. Any additional fundraising you do is credited to your card at the end of the 30 days. My goal was $7500 and I ended up raising $8182.

Sounds like one hell of a scam. Almost as bad as the MS150 bicycle events where they send you to collections if you don't come up with a minimum pledge. Some 'charity'

I've participated twice in a BCM/Summit for Someone climb. It is not a scam. It is very clear going into it that you are obligated to raise a certain amount, or the remainder is charged to your credit card. While I've never asked them for an explanation, the way I see it is they can accommodate a certain number of participants, and they need to raise a certain amount of money to support the BCM programs; they need to ensure that participants are truly going to make the effort to raise funds. Being on the hook for it yourself provides extra motivation. They provide plenty of tools/ideas to help with the fundraising.

michellen wrote:

nhluhr wrote:

DukeJH wrote:I climbed Iztaccihuatl and El Pico de Orizaba in 2009 for Big City Mountaineers (BCM)through their Summit for Someone (SFS) program. I'd heard about the program a couple years before but decided not to do it because the fundraising goal was daunting. With BCM, you accept a fundraising goal that you must reach 60 days prior to your climb. If you do not reach the goal, they charge your card with the remaining balance but you have until 30 days after your climb to continue fundraising. Any additional fundraising you do is credited to your card at the end of the 30 days. My goal was $7500 and I ended up raising $8182.

Sounds like one hell of a scam. Almost as bad as the MS150 bicycle events where they send you to collections if you don't come up with a minimum pledge. Some 'charity'

I've participated twice in a BCM/Summit for Someone climb. It is not a scam. It is very clear going into it that you are obligated to raise a certain amount, or the remainder is charged to your credit card. While I've never asked them for an explanation, the way I see it is they can accommodate a certain number of participants, and they need to raise a certain amount of money to support the BCM programs; they need to ensure that participants are truly going to make the effort to raise funds. Being on the hook for it yourself provides extra motivation. They provide plenty of tools/ideas to help with the fundraising.

+1. BCM is very up front that you will be responsible for the balance and they provide a book, a website, and a blog to help give you fundraising ideas. On some of the bigger trips, they've let people defer a year if it is obvious they will not make their fundraising goal, so they're very accomodating and helpful. At 60 days out, they book the climber onto the guided trip and the climber must begin coordinating with the guide company, just like for any other guided climb.

DukeJH--I considered the Izta/Orizaba trip in '09 but did not do it because I was worried about raising so much (I did another climb with a smaller obligation in the summer months); if I had, we would have met. Was Deb your other guide? I met her this winter on a similar trip (not with SMI or SFS-related) and she mentioned she had guided a SFS climb there. Small world.

For the OP, I first learned about the SFS climbs through a friend, who mentioned seeing an ad in a magazine (must have been Backpacker, as they are a sponsor) and thought I would be interested. I was new to climbing and thought SFS was a great way to do another climb/keep at it--while also doing good for others. Hiking, climbing etc had a positive effect on my life and it was not hard to imagine the possible positive impact on the kids BCM works with. So that's why I decided to participate. My first SFS climb was in 2007, and I did a second the summer of '08. My first time (which was also in a much better economic climate) my fundraising commitment was $3500 but I raised almost $7000. The second climb I think my commitment was $3200 or maybe $3500; I raised most of that and put in the last few hundred dollars myself. I targeted the same friends/family/business contacts, and the second time fundraising was definitely harder, but also in tougher economic times. Admittedly, I relied on an email campaign and in-person appeals, and certainly could have gotten more creative like DukeJH did. Overall they were great experiences--the climbs, the guides, fellow participants and of course participating in the cause itself--and I'm sure I'll do another one at some point in the future.

Michellen:
Our second guide was a local guide named Miriam. There were several guided groups there from some well known and not so well known guide services.

For the OP:
One of the BCM tag lines is "raise funds, get gear, go climb, do good" or something similar. Consider my fundraising goal was $7500. The cost of a guided expedition would have been $2500 retail or so. Mountain Gear gave a $1200 (retail) gear stipend for this trip and other sponsors provided around $700 retail in free gear. So the net benefit to me was $4,400 in gear and guide costs and all i had to do was spend a little time and effort raising money for a good cause and train for a trip I would have taken anyway.

I climbed Ben Nevis in 2005 with a group of six people from my previous workplace and Ben Lomond in 2009 with a group of around twenty people from my current workplace. Both of the climbs were for the same charity, The Davie Cooper centre, which is trying to build a hospice in Clydebank for children with special needs.

I heard about the charity through the local press and our fundraising was generally done through family, friends and work mates. No pressure to raise certain amounts of money in order to participate and we roughly raised a couple of thousand pounds on each occasion.

Both days provided good weather and everyone enjoyed it, although there were a few people walking funny on the Monday's back at work.