Setting the Course for a Race to Save Lives

About this Project

When a team backed by the University of Minnesota and the founder of the Pelotonia, a bike race in Ohio that has raised over $130 million for cancer research, decided to launch a new bike ride in the Twin Cities, they turned to Software for Good for help building a robust marketing website and donation platform.

Our challenge? Develop a website that would support the Chainbreaker team in promoting a brand-new charitable bike race, give participants the tools necessary to raise money for their ride, and securely collect significant funds — all in a few short months.

With only a logo and color palette to guide our work, Software for Good set out to create a beautiful, user-driven website that captured the spirit of the race and made it simple to do a few key tasks: learn, register, donate, and share.

In addition to establishing the visual direction for the event and website, our team led user experience and content planning with the goal of building a streamlined site with clear paths for every user type. Development was done in phases, with the most important features — rider information and registration — rolled out quickly and additional functionality — fundraising and social sharing — added over time. We relied on WordPress to get the site up quickly, and integrated with third party plug-ins and tools including BuddyPress, Stripe, and Charitable.

The result was a hugely successful inaugural ride, with more than 1,000 riders and over $1.3 million raised for cancer research at the University of Minnesota.

Getting ready for a major charitable campaign?