I am very happy to say that after too much time and some procrastination the 2010 Wicked Philanthropy jersey design is finally available. They should be arriving just in time for all EIGHT of us to wear them for The Prouty and we’ll certainly be wearing them on our “C2C” later this summer.

The jerseys are available to everyone for a limited time at $75 (+S&H). Please email Matt (Matt@WickedPhilanthropy.org) with your size preference to be included with the next order.

Special thanks to Wicked Good Cookies, Wicked Joe, Ben & Jerry’s, Walcott Corporation, and Gu Energy for helping our team!

The original post can be found here: http://www.wickedlocal.com/concord/homepage/x1758551698/3-QUESTIONS-Concord-cyclist-plans-coastal-ride

3 QUESTIONS: Concord cyclist plans coastal ride

Courtesy photo Concord resident Matt Solar, left, at the finish of the 2005 Prouty Century Bike Ride in Hanover, N.H., with Adrian Ionescu, center, and Mike Morris.

By Patrick Ball/Staff Writer

Thu Dec 03, 2009, 01:40 PM EST

Concord -

After years of PanMass Challenges and annual Prouty Century Bike Rides, Concord resident Matt Solar and his team of philanthropic cyclists next summer will take the road less traveled, biking from Concord to Bar Harbor.

In a self-supported ride dubbed the “C2C,” Solar, Taylor Moran-Gates and Adrian Ionescu — members of a Wicked Philanthropy team formed in 2004 — will bike from Concord to the summit of Cadillac Mountain in Bar Harbor, Maine, to benefit an as-yet determined environmental group protecting the coastline they’ll follow along their ride.

Solar says they haven’t worked out all the logistics of the C2C, scheduled for July 29, 2010, but their goal is to follow Coastal Route 1. “How we get there is going to take some bushwhacking and trail-making,” he said in a recent interview.

Tell me about Wicked Philanthropy and what you guys are all about.

I’m working to organize a group called Wicked Philanthropy, and essentially what it is, is a group of friends who are trying to do different physical challenges to raise money and awareness for different causes. Historically, we’ve done the Prouty up in New Hampshire and the PMC here in Massachusetts. Those have both been for cancer. And our new one, which we’re doing as a self-supported ride, is the C2C, which is a 300-plus mile three-day trip. The group started in 2004, when Jeff Adams and I rode in the PanMass Challenge for the first time. Every year we wanted to pull more friends into it and sort of just became this group. Wicked Philanthropy as a name, sort of spawned off of an adventure racing team we had. We wanted to have a different image, not as clean-cut as some of these smaller, less aggressive charities. We want to push everything a little bit, whether it’s the fundraising goals or the charities we take on.

Why is it important for you to give to these causes in this way?

I’ve always enjoyed riding, I like spending time with my friends and I have an entrepreneurial spirit, so the idea of founding something as a group was really exciting, went hand-in-hand. In 2002 we lost a friend to cancer, but we didn’t have the resources to ride the PMC, which had a large fundraising minimum, until 2004. Once we bit the bullet and decided to do it, it just took off. As far as the environment, I fish quite a bit up on the Maine coast, and we’ve seen quite a bit of habitat destruction up there. So that’s been near and dear and, for the C2C, we’re looking for someone, like a grassroots organization working on that. We’ve found a couple and we’re working with our current sponsors, GU Energy Gel and Wicked Joe’s of Maine, to identify different causes we can donate to. And the cycling is what we’re good at. We’re all young and physically fit, relatively speaking, so it was a natural fit for us to use one to help the other.

How can people help you out?

People can help us out in one of several ways. One is, obviously we’re always looking for riders to join us in local rides or some of the longer rides, such as the Concord to Cadillac. We’re always looking for individual to help sponsor us and donate to our cause. And the third, which is probably the most important right now, is we’re looking for corporate sponsors to sponsor our team and help us pay for some of the logistics along the ride and make donations to some of our causes, whether it’s cancer research or an environmental cause. We will be submitting our jerseys — our final designs — probably in the February or March timeframes, so if corporate sponsors want to be on our jerseys, then we would ask that they get involved before then. Individuals for financial sponsorship can get involved any time, even after the rides, so probably until October 2010. Individuals looking to ride, I’d say as soon as possible.

It should go without saying that we’re looking for volunteers.  We’re looking for help with everything from finalizing the “C2C” route, to networking for sponsorship, to proposals on what we should apply our funds to.

Please feel free to contact us by Twitter, email, or phone:

• Twitter: @WickedPhil or @MattSolar
• Email: Use the contact form above.
• Phone: Use the Google Voice button at right.

The .com to .org conversion is complete (content-wise, anyway).  I’m going to have WickedPhilanthropy.com redirect to this blog so now it’s time to coerce some web-friends to help spruce it up a bit.  I’m open to ideas – what would be helpful, valuable, or interesting to see here?

I’m planning on posting;

• Fundraising goals & accomplishments
• Progress on the routes/rides
• Logistics milestones
• Occasional training summaries
• Sponsor updates

I’m especially looking forward to breaking the $20k mark.  Feedback is always welcome to please don’t hesitate to email.

Thanks,
Matt

One thing we’re asking every single one of our friends to do is to become a fan of Wicked Philanthropy on Facebook.  Here are a few reasons why we don’t want any talking back when you get our invitations;

• It’s completely free.
• It’s easy – just click the “Become a Fan” link.
• It helps us out.
• We post very infrequently but if you still think it’s too much you can hide us from your update feed.

Most people under estimate how much it helps.  Aside from hoping that you’ll want to hear more about our efforts and milestones it does help us develop credibility with potential sponsors.  We may be small, but we’re loud.

Social media is a buzz word these days but with good reason.  Having a fan base shows sponsors not only that we’re dedicated but that we have the potential to engage potential customers in conversation and spread the word of their generosity in hopes that we will further support them.

Our goal is to exceed 1,000 fans.

Please help us out by taking a few moments to become a “fan” of us and to invite your friends as well.  To invite your friends, please view the three step process below.

Step 1: When in the WP Fan page, click on "Suggest to Friends" link in the upper left corner under our logo.

Step 2: Select the friends you wish to invite by clicking on their thumbnails.

Step 3: Close the window verifying success.

Yes, it’s that simple.

What the process does is send the following email to the friends you’ve selected;

“Matt became a fan of Wicked Philanthropy on Facebook and suggested you become a fan too.

To see more details and confirm this invitation, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?pages/Boston-MA/Wicked-Philanthropy/7073776970

Thanks,
The Facebook Team”

That’s it – perhaps the easiest way to support a non-profit philanthropy group.

I’m in the middle of a much needed overhaul of the website.

It’s been a few years and my attention to it has been wanning.  This year, however, is a turning point.  I’ve decided that I just need to suck it up and do it – turn Wicked Philanthropy into a proper non-profit.  The book keeping will become more difficult, the expectations will become more difficult, and I’ll need to set my goals higher. These days it seems that too many people are uncommitted, lazy ,or simply don’t care and I don’t want to be one of them.

Using Yvon Chouinard’s book for inspiration, and, hopefully, without sounding too self-righteous, I’m going to do my best to put my money where my mouth is and try to do something about it.  Filing for 501(c) non-profit status for Wicked Philanthropy and a site overhaul are a start.  Next steps are recruiting people to help; riders, corporate sponsors, individual donors, web developers… everyone can help in some form, please contact me if you are interested in helping.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.“  – Mahatma Ghandi