Why should companies and people support and contribute to the MARCH?


The aim of the MARCH is to unite businesses and charities through sport.

The MARCH will create new business opportunities that bring charities and businesses together, through adventure racing.

• Businesses will be able to provide key support to significant charities of their choice.
  
  
• In doing so, they will have the opportunity to align themselves with inspirational,
  environmental, healthy and inclusive principles.
  
  
• They will also receive compelling and significant business returns.
  
  

(i) Providing key support to charities

The MARCH offers three ways of supporting charitable endeavours – product sales, direct aid and adventure aid.

(a)             The MARCH supports small businesses wishing to market innovative products to the adventure racing community. The MARCH knows how CHallenging it can be to bring a new product to market.  Through its online store, its athletes and its promotional activities (more below in paragraph (iii) the MARCH will help.  What do we ask in return?  As part of our support we will work with each company to agree an acceptable share of sales revenue to contribute to charity.  The MARCH will never sell or market a product that does not produce a charitable donation.

(b)             Direct aid will be provided by agreeing a nominated charity with our business partner who the MARCH race team will then endorse and support. The terms of the support will be moulded to the business and the charity in question. Options will include the following:

• All prize money being donated to the charity.
  
  
• All community donations collected during the racing period being donated to the charity.
  
  
• Elite members of the race team making themselves available to promote and endorse the charity.
  

Or any other agreed form of direct aid to the charity

(c)             Adventure aid is a new concept. The MARCH aims to support a new range of global races, targeting, and taking place in countries recovering from wars, natural disasters and other catastrophes. The MARCH will provide a new form of aid, bringing money, global attention and inspiration directly to the community in need - Adventure Aid! An adventure race moves through the countryside giving unparalleled exposure to the real country, not just the headlines. The MARCH Adventure Aid will help communities and countries build a new profile and move away from a heritage of pain, suffering or disadvantage. It will allow aid to be provided directly to the communities, at grass roots level. No scope for wastage. Revenue will be brought to the actual people on the ground.

(ii) Compelling principles

Adventure racing and the athletes who participate are inspirational

In a world increasingly populated by athletes who ask a lot and sometimes offer little adventure racing athletes break the mould. They give everything, ask little and can inspire all.

The challenges they face are colossal. Their mental and physical strength is awe inspiring. They can run, cycle, climb, swim, canoe for days on end. Their race does not have two halves or last a matter of minutes. The physio is not present to rub it better. They will be racing when you wake up and still racing when you go to bed - for day after day. Their field is not freshly cut and newly painted. Their field can be the most inhospitable place on earth. Adventure racing athletes dream bigger dreams and think bigger thoughts than ordinary athletes. In doing so, they inspire and challenge others to do more and be better.


Positive change whether in the business or the social environment can be effectively triggered by inspirational role models. Learning about the new and extreme challenges faced by minority sports people and understanding how those challenges were met can bring the challenges of business and life within reach. One of our aims is to inspire the next generation, from whatever background, to take up adventure racing and take more out of life.

Adventure racing provides the perfect sporting context for developing a sustainable environmental awareness

Adventure racing depends on the quality of the natural environment. One can not happen without the other. Leaving nothing but footprints adventure racing provides a unique expression of a sustainable relationship between man and the environment. In building, understanding and experiencing that relationship it also develops an environmental respect and awareness unavailable in many sports.

People may say that adventure racing harms the environment. We take a different view. We believe that by developing awareness, love and respect for the environment through adventure racing people are unlikely to go back to their board room and community and suggest their company builds another 10 factories, clears another 100 hectares of forest or pollutes their local stream. If you love and enjoy your back yard you do not foul it! An adventure racing athlete will generally 'pack it in and pack it out'. They go out of their way not to damage their sporting environment and will be the first to promote this approach to others.

Adventure racing can build responsible and respectful attitudes towards sustainable environmental practices. Business processes and frameworks should be harmonious with their surroundings, just like Adventure Racing. We want to help young folk grow up with a respect for the environment. We think adventure racing can help them do that.

Physical activity, promoted by adventure racing, is good for the health of the individual and the nation, the financial well being of the Country and is perfectly aligned with current British Government Policy.

According to the NHS 'statistics on obesity, physical activity and diet' published in January 2008 over 24% of adults in England are classified as obese and 16% of children (aged 2-15) are classed as obese. Not surprisingly, adults with low physical activity levels are more than twice as likely to have a raised waist circumference as those with high levels of physical activity. Using both BMI and waist circumference to assess the risk of health problems, 53% of the population are estimated to be at an increased risk.

Currently it is estimated that the costs to the NHS of treating the consequences of obesity are approximately £1.225 billion. It is predicted that by 2025 the costs of obesity to the NHS could rise to £5.3 billion.

The government's new ambition on excess weight is to be the first major country to reverse the rising tide of obesity and overweight in the population.

Physical activity has been identified as a key action point in delivering the Government's ambition above. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) now recommends that primary care practitioners should identify inactive adults and advise them to aim for 30 minutes of moderate activity on 5 days of the week (or more).

Adventure racing is a perfect physical activity to fight obesity and reduce the risk of health problems. Promoting it is to promote physical activity in the outdoors. Something to be enjoyed by everyone, at any level of fitness. An expedition style multi day adventure race may not be right for everyone. But knowing what can be achieved is a great motivation to do something. Adventure races take all shapes and sizes. A fast walk or short jog through a beautiful wood is a great way to start!

Adventure racing is a minority sport. Supporting it is an inclusive way to back a non-mainstream physical activity.

Offering support to adventure racing provides an opportunity to contribute to an activity that includes athletes from many different sports and many different backgrounds who in their new chosen sport generally have very little support or assistance. They are often people who do not fit well or perform well in mainstream sports. We want to encourage those sorts of people to take up adventure racing. It is a new sport and very much a minority sport. A little extra support will make a big difference.

Adventure racing will not stay a minority sport forever. The MARCH provides an opportunity to support a sport as it grows and becomes more mainstream (think sailing before Kingfisher/B&Q and Ellen MacArthur). It is a unique sport and supporting the MARCH provides a unique opportunity to help develop its profile.

The MARCH believes multisport adventure racing offers a novel opportunity to build a sport that is gender equal. It presents men and women with the opportunity to compete as equals, on the same footing. Presently most expedition races call for a team of 4 made up of 3 men and 1 woman. That is changing. Some races now require an equal split. The MARCH supports equal team membership for group based expedition races and will be promoting this approach, as well as supporting individual adventure racers.

(iii) Significant returns

There is more than one way that a business can benefit.

Some of the specific, tangible returns are set out below. But supporting a charity also provides less tangible benefits. It can become part of that sponsors story. Part of their fabric and their history. Woven in to the tapestry of their place in the market. It is an expression of how they wish to act, what goals inspire them and what causes they wish to support. As explained above the MARCH will stand for and champion several charitable causes. If a sponsor has similar principles and wants to weave support for those principles in to its corporate story then supporting the MARCH will allow it to do that. The MARCH will encourage people to 'achieve beyond expectation' - a goal perhaps shared by our sponsors.

There are many good charities seeking support. Each has its own benefits. Ultimately each sponsor must choose a charity that represents and delivers aspirational benefits to a worthy community of people and interests, which is aligned with their own corporate goals. That becomes a personal choice for each sponsor.

In this regard, to summarise the MARCH aspirations explained above, supporting the MARCH means you can:

• align yourself, support and motivate people, and particularly the next generation, to work harder, aim higher, go further in their life and reach their goals faster;
  
  
• support an inspirational, environmental, healthy and inclusive activity and range of people and attitudes;
  
  
• contribute to nominated and established charities of your choice;.
  
  
• help support, assist and rebuild damaged and suffering communities and countries. Be first to promote 'Adventure Aid'; and
  
  
• support a rare gender balanced sporting event with equal teams of men and women competing on a genuinely equal footing.
  

And there are also more traditional, tangible returns for businesses too:

• taking their product to market.  The MARCH is looking for businesses with exciting adventure racing products.  We will not only sell and promote their products (building an e-commerce platform around them) but provide for endorsement by elite athletes and field testing in the most extreme environments.
  
  
• the MARCH can enhance a business' profile by becoming an important part of their approach to Corporate Responsibility. CR is key to a mature and successful business, and the MARCH can be used to encourage people to participate in multisport adventure racing in a way that furthers important CR principles - like being inspirational, environmental, healthy and inclusive;
  
  
• providing distinctive PR and branding opportunities for their business or interest. The MARCH is focused on a sport in its ascendance, and companies have the prospect to get involved while the sport still has a low profile;
  
  
• aligning themselves with the MARCH over different continents and reaching a new client base. Given the world span of competitions, they can promote their company internationally through various branding opportunities. The races are global - giving companies brand exposure in new markets;
  
  
• encouraging their employees to get involved in competitions. This will increase employee fitness, and provide the business with healthier staff; and
  
  
• allowing them to meet elite multisport adventure racing athletes, and using these athletes' experiences to inspire employees. A unique MARCH form of teambuilding.