Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening,
everybody, and welcome to today's episode of
the Never Peak Project Podcast. I'm your host,
Coach Ranger, and in today's episode, we are
going to be talking about my walk across America.
Now, we're going to be specifically talking about
that walk through the lens of fundraising, and
more specifically, we're going to put another
lens over that of the regrets that I have from
what I did. during my walk across the US. So
sit back, relax, grab a beverage of your choice.
I am drinking some coffee from Cold Budded Caffeine
Company. Get yours down in the description below.
But as always, thank you so much for listening
and let's jump into today's episode. Now to quickly
recap, last year, 2024, I walked across the United
States all the way from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
back to Los Angeles in Southern California. Along
the way, I ended up doing 2 ,642 miles, and I
raised $8 ,500, three amazing charities, the
Future Farmers of America on the national level,
Bigger Than the Trail, which is a mental health
support organization, and the Hospice Promise
Foundation, which provides non -medical hospice
-related expense relief. And I was able to make
that happen from the help of Wander Project.
Wander Project is a fantastic resource for a
nonprofit that encourages endurance activism.
So whether or not you're doing a walk across
the United States, a half marathon, full marathon,
ultra marathon, they have plenty of different
resources and opportunities for you to fundraise
and support the organizations that really matter
to you. So in today's episode, for those three
nonprofits that I raised money for, I have...
roughly five major regrets or lessons that I
learned from this fundraising endeavor. Really,
my intention was sharing this with you as a way
to, one, reinforce the learning for myself, but
to give you some ideas of how you can better
utilize the tools and support that are out there
when you are doing your own form of endurance
activism or just fundraising in general. So let's
go ahead and dive right in. The very first one,
this is one that I kind of struggle with on a
personal basis. But I think that the first thing
is I had too many causes, not enough clarity.
Now, again, I was raising money for three different
nonprofits. Now, that's great and all, but I
do think that by focusing on so many organizations,
it really diluted the message of what I was trying
to do here. I was talking a little bit about
FFA, a little bit about Bigger Than the Trail,
a little bit about the Hospice Promise. Now,
all three of these organizations... do mean a
lot to me. I was in the Future Farmers of America
when I was growing up. I mean, if you notice
the ring on my hand, my right ring finger, my
left finger is still empty until I get married
next year. But... I grew up in the FFA. I have
some fantastic experiences. Bigger than the trail,
I absolutely love that they are able to provide
free therapy and mental health support to people
all across the nation. And they do so by encouraging
runners to raise that money and to talk about
that message and promote the idea of mental and
physical health. The Hospice Promise Foundation,
they are a charity that supports the same hospice
treatment program that my Papa Larry went through
when he was in his final stages of Alzheimer's.
All three of these organizations are fantastic
and great on their own, but what I noticed is
that it was a little bit confusing when I was
trying to explain that I was raising money for
all three of them on my walk. I had some people
that were saying things like, what are you raising
money for? What exactly is it? Or how can I donate
to just one? How can I support just one of them?
Or what do you mean all, if I donate a dollar,
it gets cut up three ways. It was just super
confusing. I think it was more difficult for
people to latch on the core reason for my walk,
which was, again, to highlight, learn from, and
work with people in the U .S. that are making
a real difference in their community. I think
that if I just hooked onto one of those calls,
causes or another cause, it would have really
tied it all in together. And the other thing
that was confusing was Wander Project is who
I was raising the money through on my Facebook
fundraiser. Now, again, super appreciate Wander
Project. I'm an ambassador for them right now.
Same thing with Bigger Than The Trail. When I
would send them the link to donate, it would
say making the donation to Wander Project. So
it just made it more, it made it more confusing.
Thankfully, Wander Project, I'll get more into
the Facebook. fundraising aspect later, but now
they do have their own platform for fundraising.
So as we learn more about that, I will share
more details. And I do plan to have someone from
the Wander Project on in the podcast in the future.
But really, again, the focus here is to keep
your message on one story and make it unforgettable.
Focus in on one rather than try to promote a
bunch. The other thing is for the first few states,
I was struggling with an elevator pitch for what
I was doing and what I was raising money for.
I got better at it rather quickly, all things
considered. I mean, it only took me about three
or four weeks to get a pitch down about why I
was walking, who I was raising money for, and
the best way for people to support me. But I
do think that if I had focused on that prior
to starting, it would have really capitalized
on that initial hype and excitement. Of me doing
the walk. So. I mean just. Getting that down
for. Side of the road chats. Or on the news.
I think it would have helped a ton. I also wish
that I had some kind of shirt that had all of
the logos on it for those because I think that
that would have been able to help like say, oh,
you know, I'm raising money for FFA, Bigger Than
The Trail, Hospice Promise, doing that through
Wander Project. Like that might have been a little
bit easier to have something very visual to show.
Really the lesson there is to practice your pitch.
Because your cause depends on it. That is what's
going to get people excited. That's what's going
to turn them from supporters to donors. And that
is what's going to really make your vision a
reality. Is being able to concisely explain what
you're doing, why you're doing it, who you're
doing it for. The other thing, gosh, that I had
a hard time with was the Facebook fundraiser.
It really just flopped. Unless I missed a special
button somewhere. Facebook only lets you do a
fundraiser for up to three months at a time,
which is great if you're doing a quick one or
a birthday fundraiser. But when you're walking
across the country for five and a half months,
it makes it difficult. So the issue that I had
with Facebook was I started my first fundraiser
about a month before I even started. So the fundraiser
had to be live for at least six and a half weeks
or six and a half months. So the first three
months. was great. And then it stopped. And then
it just killed momentum. Because my initial goal
was $100 ,000. And I was able to raise, I think,
$4 ,500 in that first round. But as soon as that
fundraiser ended, it got rid of that progress
and started me back off at zero. So instead of
being... 4 ,500 out of 100 ,000, it was zero
out of 90 ,000. And same thing for that third
round. So it was just confusing. There was a
bunch of links going around for fundraiser number
one, number two, number three. And since I had
my website and the podcast, I had to go back
every single time one of those ended and replace
all the links. And no matter how detailed I tried
to be with hitting those, I was always missing
a link. And someone would message me and say,
hey, this is the old one. This one isn't working.
I'm like, again, thank you for letting me know.
I will fix it. But who knows how many people
went to that trying to donate and then it didn't
even work. So I would stay away from. platforms
like Facebook for the most part when it comes
to these longer -term fundraising aspects. And
again, Wander Project is working on their own
Choose Your Own Adventure form of endurance activism
and fundraising. So more on that as time goes
on, but I'm so excited that they're working on
a way to make that work better because that was
such a huge bummer every few months seeing that
number drop from thousands back down to zero,
and it was just confusing. So staying with that
idea of the $100 ,000 goal, regret number four
is big goals can backfire. Now, my $100 ,000
goal sounded inspiring. I think it felt overwhelming
to potential donors and even myself at times.
I did have somebody on the side of the road say
that they were, they're like, oh, I donate a
few bucks, but that's a drop in the bucket for
what you're trying to do. And that really kind
of hit home. I think it was like halfway across
the country and I realized, oh my gosh, like
how many other people felt that way? Like seeing
this huge arduous goal of a hundred thousand.
and thinking, man, my $5 won't make a difference.
My 10, 15, 20, that's nothing compared to what
he's trying to do. I think it was just such an
overwhelming number that it was hard for people
to grasp and get behind. So what I really wish
I had done is start the goal off at like $10
,000 and then really, really, really focus on
making that happen. Because if I had started
at $10 ,000, and like I said, in the first round,
I raised $4 ,500. almost, yeah, over half of
what I ended up with just in the first, the month
leading up to the walk and the two months after
it started. So I think that using that momentum
of saying, hey, we're almost halfway to the fundraising
goal. We're barely a month into the thing. Let's
keep going. I think that that could have been
a better way to get people bought in and enrolled
into the idea of raising money. So I think that
my big lesson there is to start smaller and then
increase from there. Which I know sounds a little
bit weird compared to a lot of things like, you
know, shoot for the stars. Was it shoot for the
moon? And at least you'll land amongst the stars.
I think that that's kind of what I'm getting
at. But it's also just knowing like being okay
if you land in the stars. So to distill that
down, start smaller, hit your goal, grow from
there. And then number five, the last major one
is. perfection just leads to paralysis. I had
such a hard time posting content at the beginning
of my walk. I thought that everything had to
be perfect. I would go through things, I would
post it, and then I would find a typo later on,
and it was just so discouraging and frustrating
that I was messing up so much. I didn't post
as much. I didn't post my daily updates every
single day. I didn't, um... post photos or captions
or whatever throughout the day because I was
so afraid of misspelling things. And overall,
I think that just led to a lack of engagement
and excitement about what I was doing. Especially
with videos, I learned that people love a video
and what I was trying to do is record the perfect
one -take video or I would try to edit it or
make it nice and polished. I started getting
a lot more engagement and excitement. when I
wasn't editing, when I would just take a selfie,
throw up on the internet and say, hey, I crossed
the state line today. Hey, I did this thing.
I met this person. I had this thought. That was
when people really resonated with what I was
doing. I think in today's society, people are
kind of tired of that corporate talk, perfect
idea. I think they really do want real. They
want messy. They want exciting. They want to
feel like you are a person. So when you are training
for your race or you're in the middle of it or
you're doing whatever, what I would really suggest
is just post. Just post the content. That's what
I told the Live -In Project before they started
their walk was just post on your story. Just
post pictures. Just post videos. That's what
people want to see. It's great to spend some
time making the more polished material, that
storyline, that, oh, I don't know if I'm going
to make it through today. Like, let's see what
happens or this thing came up or whatever. But
overall, I think people do want real. They want
messy. So be okay with being messy. Share what's
really going on. The highs, the lows, the good,
the bad. Because that's what adds to the story.
And that's what really rounds it out and is exciting
for people. So a few fire lessons I'm going to
throw out really quick. I'm not going to talk
too much about them. Post across all platforms.
You can. Not just Facebook and Instagram. I wish
that I had gotten onto YouTube, TikTok, Substack,
more of my blog, etc. I think that posting in
more places is better. Make short -form content
with your cause or charity. I think that if I
had made more content or shared more information
about the reasons why I'm supporting those charities,
I would have raised more money because people
could have connected to it even more. But really,
I think that that is the end of it. If I was
going to wrap this up, I think that really it's
just about giving yourself grace at the end of
the day. Everything that I talked about right
now is very hindsight. Hindsight is very 2020.
It's very easy to see the mistakes that you made
in the past. But I think it's also about remembering,
hey, like I was in fight or flight. I was in
survival mode for five and a half months. I couldn't
make the perfect decisions all the time. I was
doing whatever I could to get to the next day,
get through whatever challenge was in front of
me. And I really don't want to sit here and beat
myself up about it. But I do hope that some of
these lessons will help you in your endurance
activism and really help you make a change in
the lives of the people that you're raising money
for. $8 ,500 is still a huge win. That is a fantastic
amount of money. It's just shy of $3 ,000 per
charity. I think it's going to really go a long
way with helping FFA students start their projects,
helping Bigger Than the Trail provide months
of free therapy, and of course, help the Hospice
Promise Foundation make an impact with those
that are affected by Alzheimer's or are in hospice
treatment. So any amount matters. No matter how
small or how big, your impact matters. I don't
know how else to say that in a very cutesy way.
Anyway, as always, thank you so much for listening
today. Your time and attention mean the most
to me, and I really appreciate that you were
able to spend a little bit of that here with
me. Remember that my free ebook, Walking Towards
Success, a 50 -page guide of the nine lessons
that I learned on my walk across America are
down in the show notes. Just hit that link, put
in your email, and you'll get it sent straight
to you. I hope that it is as useful for you as
it was for me. You can learn more about the Wander
Project down below at wanderproject .org. Thank
you so much for listening. And remember, the
best is yet to come as long as you are willing
to make the decision to never settle, never quit,
and never peak. I'll see you guys in the next
one.