Bike-athon Founder Looks to the Future After a Record-Breaking Year

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The Pan-Mass Challenge, one of charity’s most reliably robust fundraising events, had a stellar year — again. The organization, which is built around a 110-mile, two-day bike marathon in Massachusetts, raised $56 million this year, the most it’s ever generated, for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

That’s a nearly 10 percent increase from the $51 million it raised in 2017. It tops off at $654 million the amount the organization, which celebrates its 40th anniversary next year, has garnered for its cause.

While most of the top 30 athletic and other fundraising events that rely on volunteers to raise money from friends and family members are seeing declines in revenue over the past five years, Billy Starr, the PMC’s founder, has reason to crow: His event keeps growing, with an average of 7 percent growth in revenue over the last five years. “It’s not about massive numerical growth in ridership,” he says. “It’s culture, cause, and commitment.”

The Pan-Mass Challenge pioneered a tough-love approach with charity-event participants: It requires them to raise a significant minimum amount and charges their credit cards for the difference if they fall short. Participants in 2019’s Challenge who register by March 1 will sign up to raise minimums ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on which route they select. The minimums rise to $8,000 for people who sign up after March 1.

But success doesn’t mean the organization is getting complacent. It’s considering a search for a new chief operations officer, though Starr, 67, has no plans to retire anytime soon.

And the organization is looking ahead to how technology will increase its reach and help it retain riders who want to raise money. (This year, 77 percent of participants had also ridden in the event previously.)

After a bit of gloating in the wake of the Boston Red Sox’s World Series win, Starr talked about the PMC’s latest success, and how it keeps on rolling.

What were the factors that helped the Pan-Mass Challenge grow again so well this year?

We’ve got an event that works well in people’s lives, with the right sport, the right hospital.

I’m not going to tell you we did something new this year, or even six years ago. It just gets stronger. We refine our infrastructure. We continually innovate on our tools. But it’s the same event.

A lot of organizations that run events like yours are struggling, are reporting fewer donors from which they’re trying to raise more money. But you’re not in that situation.

No, we’re not.

Many of these events grew out of a background of awareness, of minimal commitment. Certain inefficiencies that I suspect best practices are starting to weed out. Maybe bloated costs, maybe just modest fundraising goals for the participants. For the major events, the PMC is sort of the curl of the wave for all of this: The first one to say if you don’t [raise a minimum amount], you’re be billed for the difference. The whole change of the paradigm from good intentions to a commitment.

Pan-Mass Challenge

But also you’re clearly getting something of value. It isn’t necessarily an [Internal Revenue Service] thing that says, “The PMC weekend is worth $1,000.” But it’s something intrinsic to the soul. And when you back it up with the credit card, you get a perfect storm of getting positive results.

What are other reasons why PMC is succeeding when other events are struggling?

There is a culture of big-buck bike-athons. The nature of the sport makes it more than a walk or a run. There’s teamwork, there’s danger, there’s travel, there’s technology. And for the amateur athlete who is in the whole sweat-equity industry, who you are trying to attract, you want them to have the ability to do it, the desire to do it, backed up with skin in the game, in terms of money. And you know when you quantify those results of the effort you gave individually, to a gift our magnitude, it’s just tremendously motivating. .

So you’re part of something bigger than yourself. And I think Pelotonia [bike-athon in Columbus, Ohio] has done that. And another half-dozen events across the country.

You can’t get away from the cancer cause that strikes home for so many people. It’s deeply personal for me, my crowd, and probably all such events around the country.

The PMC has a winter cycle event at Fenway Park, on stationary bikes. Is that a new addition?

This will be our second time at Fenway, and it will be the fourth year. We had rebranded it. It was originally called the Resolution, because we were running it on New Year’s Day — then found out that’s not a great day to be doing it.

People are not at their best on New Year’s Day.

Well, you’ll want to get those who are really wanting to turn a new leaf.

But in moving it to Fenway Park, and the Boston Red Sox Foundation, which is one of our copresenting sponsors, the location, the large venue? We tripled our revenue last year from that. And it was a lot of fun last year: Being in Fenway in winter, on bikes again, and reaching a new demographic for the PMC is all good.

You have 77 percent return participation. Is that a concern, that these bikers are going to age out of being able to handle that two-day ride? Is this potentially the future?

I’m going to answer that very plain: No. For a couple of reasons. One, we’ve got 1,100 in the PMC who are under 30.

Two, keep in mind that we’re not a race. There are several movements that are coming — with motors, solar energy, electric-powered bikes. All of this, for somebody who has identity on the bike or in the PMC, I guess it’s a way to save in terms of energy.

Say you want to ride from Sturbridge, which is a big-time ride, 110 miles, that’s the classic route. But you only have the desire to bike 60 miles. Well, if you have a motor on your bike, you can manage that. So I see longevity in the PMC is actually being assisted by technology.

It’s a bigger issue when these people are retired and they don’t have the same fundraising capacity as they lose business contacts. That happens regularly in any fundraising event. So if you’ve got a guy who was with you at 50 and he’s still with you at 75, you know, more power to him. But maybe he’s not raising 50 grand, maybe he’s raising 20 grand. You know, you’d never throw him out. But you’d love him to be raising 50 grand forever.

But I’m not worried about the aging because — and I do mean this seriously — we’re institutionalized. The lessons of the PMC are passed through the generations. We already had many third-generation riders, never mind hundreds of second-[generation]. At this point in my career, not 40 years in, if you’re fortunate to have succeeded with that level of traction, this is what you get. Second- and third-generation participants who grew up watching their parents leave them this weekend and tell them why they’re leaving. And the kids taking their place.

We have a kids’ rides program. So we get more than 4,000 kids in 33 [towns] around New England [and New York]. They run in the spring and the fall. We have a farm system. So, no, I’m not worried.

How do the minimums determine the demographic of riders? Does it tend to be people who are of a certain income level because they have those contacts?

It’s the motivation. You can do crowdfunding and be anywhere in the world, and it resonates. I’m not going to lie to you — doing this event with $10 gifts is very difficult. But the technology puts it more in play with a younger demographic than probably ever before.

We’re pretty much saying to people, “Don’t just come to this because it’s a cool weekend. Dig in. Earn it.” And most of them would say it’s worth it.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.