Show Me the Money:
Implementation Costs
The costs associated with sponsoring a Bike to Work Day are primarily incurred in marketing the event and providing 'day of the event' giveaways and promotional items included in participants' goodie bags. These costs will obviously vary widely depending on the amount of marketing that you do, the number of Bike to Work Day events you organize, and the number of cyclists that participate. You can reduce these costs by recruiting local business, government agencies, and non-profit organizations to act as sponsors to help defray expenses for advertising, posters and other promotional materials, canvas goodie bags, t-shirts, setting up energizer stations, and giveaways such as sports bars and free transit passes. (Jump to the 'How to Put this Tool into Action in Your Community' for advice on recruiting sponsors).
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Bike to Work Day is sponsored by
RIDES for Bay Area Commuters
(a regional rideshare organization). For the nine counties in the Bay Area, RIDES coordinated marketing for all Bay Area events and provided giveaways to Bike to Work Day participants (in addition to the items supplied by local business sponsors). The cost of providing 8,000 to 10,000 of each of the following items for the 2003 events was as follows:
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Canvas
Bags: $18,000 |
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T-shirts:
$2,000
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Stickers: $500
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Power Bars (purchased from Trader Joes): $8,000
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In addition, printed promotional materials were sent to large employers in the region in order to publicize the event. This represented additional costs for printing, envelopes and postage (about $1 for each employer).
  
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