This event wouldn’t be as much fun without a great cause. So far we’ve raised over $312,000 through rider sponsorships/donations, our Fines & Fankyou sessions, donations by officials and our End-of-Race Dinner Fundraising Auction.
With the Simpson Desert Bike Challenge being a true blue Australian adventure, it makes sense that the people involved in the SDBC also support a service which any one of us might one day need. So, the Simpson Desert Bike Challenge participants, and the organisation behind the event, Desert Challenge Inc., proudly support the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
The RFDS was the first comprehensive aerial medical organisation in the world and to this day remains unique for the range of primary health care and emergency services it provides and for the huge area of sparse population and climatic extremes over which it operates – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
To make fundraising for us even easier, we’ve partnered with the RFDS and Raisley so that each rider (or support crew or official, ‘cos why should the riders have all the fundraising fun!) has their own online fundraising page. In just minutes they can build and customise their page, then start sharing the link with their friends, family and colleagues. Every donation is then recorded on their fundraising page along with messages of support from their donors.
We expect all riders to undertake some fundraising – even if they set themselves a modest target of $500. Fundraising for such an important service (which we all hope you’ll never need!) adds another element of challenge and satisfaction to the participation in this unique event. (Don Prefrement still holds the record for raising over $17,000.)
Email if you need more information or have any questions.
In February 2024 member Alan Hancox and committee member Rasmus Altenkamp handed $21,360 to RFDS’s Mikayla Dobbin on behalf of the 2023 riders and supporters.