Policies

Donation Policy

By making a charitable gift to Climate Ride, a 501(c)3 organization, the donor understands that Climate Ride cannot refund charitable donations. For Green Fondo, a Climate Ride event, charitable gifts are also non-refundable.

Waiver

Below is a link to the Terms and Conditions that all participants agree to electronically when they register for an event. This form is also for parents and guardians to sign for participants under age 18.

Cancellation

After you have registered for a Climate Ride event, including Green Fondo, no refunds are available for any reason.

Even if you choose to cancel, Climate Ride cannot refund your registration fee and donations received nor transfer registration fees and donations to another participant’s fundraising for any Climate Ride events, including domestic and international rides, Green Fondos, Climate Runs, and Climate Hikes.

If you cancel your registration before the event’s Transfer Deadline, you may transfer your fundraising to a future event that you can attend within the same or following calendar year. Any participant who cancels their registration after the Transfer Deadline is ineligible for transfer.

If you cancel your registration before the Transfer Deadline and have met the fundraising requirement, you may transfer to another event or choose for Climate Ride to disburse raised funds through the Climate Ride Grants Program of that year.

If you cancel after the Transfer Deadline and have not met the fundraising requirement, Climate Ride will apply the partially raised funds against costs incurred in planning for your participation. We cannot disburse partially raised funds to selected beneficiaries.

Please scroll down to see the full Transfer Policy and Deadlines.

We understand that participants might think, “I can’t ride, so I want my money back,” or “Climate Ride can just hold on to my donations until I find a time I can attend an event,” or “The event is in two weeks and I just decided I can’t make it, but I’m sure Climate Ride can transfer my donations to my registered teammate.” However, for a small nonprofit organization like Climate Ride, it is not that easy.

The production of multi-day cycling, hiking, or running events requires months of planning and a significant, upfront financial investment on our part. To offer refunds or transfer participants to another event incurs tangible costs for Climate Ride, and eventually could make it impossible to run our programs. In many cases, when you bow out two weeks before an event without raising funds, we are left with your event expenses to pay.

We take our commitment to support the climate cause and our beneficiaries seriously. To that end, we work hard to support every Climate Ride participant’s fundraising commitment. When you register for a Climate Ride event, we begin preparing the logistics for your participation and paying for your event expenses. If you cancel your spot, Climate Ride and our grants program suffer a financial loss.

Unlike most nonprofits that run charitable events, we are in a unique position in that we run several events throughout the year. This ongoing programming allows us to offer a transfer policy for some events; a participant can move to another event in the case that they are no longer able to commit to the event for which they initially registered.

Keep in mind that a participant transfer is still not easy for us – as a small staff, a participant transfer disrupts our planning and challenges our commitment to deliver the best event possible. Nevertheless, we allow participants to switch their participation to other Climate Ride events, but they must follow the Transfer Policy guidelines detailed here.

Climate Ride may cancel or reroute an event due to the occurrence of any force majeure event or credible threat thereof, including but not limited to any Act of God, fire, earthquake, acts of civil or military authority, casualty, flood, war, terrorist attack, epidemic, insurrection, civil unrest, strikes or other labor activities, or any other similar cause beyond the reasonable control of Climate Ride Inc., including environmental conditions that might threaten the health and safety of Event participants, volunteers, or staff. Participants understand and agree that registration fees and other costs will not be refunded by Climate Ride Inc. if all or any portion of a Climate Ride Event is canceled or rerouted due to a force majeure event. Participants will release and hold Climate Ride Inc. harmless for any costs or damages incurred as result of cancellation or rerouting of a Climate Ride Event due to a force majeure event.

Transfer Policy

If you cannot attend the event that you registered for, you may request to transfer your fundraising to a future event. Though you can transfer your participation to another event if you make a request before the transfer deadline, we can’t transfer registrations or funds between participants. Donations cannot be transferred to another participant, whether in the year you are registered or in future years. Participants may transfer to another event within the same calendar year, or to an event in the next calendar year. Climate Ride requires that participants who transfer fundraise to meet or surpass the new event’s fundraising minimum. Participants who cancel their registration after the Transfer Deadline for their event are NOT eligible for a transfer.

Same year event transfer

If you choose to transfer to another Climate Ride event within the same calendar year, Climate Ride will apply your original registration fee toward the new event. If the new event’s registration fee is higher than the original event’s registration fee, you will be responsible for the difference. You cannot transfer into an event within 3 weeks of its start date unless given special permission from Climate Ride. Please notify Climate Ride that you would like to transfer so that our staff can assist you to register for the new event and transfer your donations.

Following year event transfer

If you choose to transfer to a Climate Ride event in the calendar year that follows, you must do so by November 1st of the year of the event for which you originally registered. The cost of transferring is $50. In addition, you are responsible for paying the registration fee for the new event. Please notify Climate Ride that you would like to transfer so that our staff can assist you in registering for the new event, paying the transfer fee, and transferring your donations.

fundraising deadlines

Climate Ride sets fundraising and transfer deadlines to help us plan our logistics, to cover expenses incurred in anticipation of your participation in the event, and to ensure every participant is committed to reaching their goals.

If you haven’t met the minimum required by a specific deadline, we will:

• Notify you: You’ll receive an email alerting you that you’re short on fundraising.
• Offer you an extension: We can give you one additional week to reach the minimum. You may use pending donations, matching gifts, or a self-pledge to meet your goal.
• Switch your participant status: If you’re still short after one week, you’ll be moved to Virtual Participant status. This means you can continue fundraising, but your spot on the in-person event isn’t guaranteed. If you’re not able to bring your fundraising up to meet the subsequent deadlines, we may offer your spot to someone else.
• Registration transfer: If at any point you decide to officially cancel your participation in the event, you should notify your participant manager right away. If you cancel before the transfer deadline, you will be given the option to transfer your already-raised funds to another Climate Ride event in the same or following calendar year. If you cancel after the transfer deadline, you will not be able to transfer your funds to another event, as Climate Ride will have already incurred costs for your participation by that point.

If you believe donations are on the way, or if you have any special circumstances (like corporate matching gifts), please let us know right away so we can do our best to assist you. Our aim is to keep our events fair, transparent, and open to those who are ready to participate and raise critical funds for our cause. We appreciate your efforts as a member of the Climate Ride community!

Privacy Policy

Climate Ride is committed to providing an informative and useful website for all visitors and constituents. At the same time, Climate Ride is also committed to protecting the privacy of all users of its website. Our websites do not collect personal or identifiable information unless it is provided voluntarily and knowingly. When such information is provided by you voluntarily and knowingly, Climate Ride will not sell this information to any third party.

Our websites may contain links which will direct you to another website outside of the control of Climate Ride. Please note that Climate Ride is not responsible for the privacy practices of these third-party websites. It is always a good practice to review the privacy policy statement of all websites you visit.

Collection of personal information

When you visit the Climate Ride website, register for a Climate Ride event, or make a donation to Climate Ride either online or offline, you may provide us with personal information (such as name, address, email address, telephone numbers, and/or credit/debit card information) that you knowingly choose to disclose, which is collected on an individual basis for various purposes. These purposes include registering for an event, signing up to receive email newsletters or other materials, requesting further information from us about projects and services, donating to us, ordering merchandise, making requests, submitting a form on our website, or simply asking a question via email. We receive and store any information you enter on our website or give us in any other way, whether it is online or offline. We ask for personal information so that we can fulfill your request and return your message. This information is retained and used in accordance with existing laws, rules, regulations, and other policies.

Climate Ride does not collect personal information from you unless you provide it to us. If you choose not to provide any of that information, we may not be able to fulfill your request or complete your order, but you will still be free to browse the other sections of the websites owned and administered by Climate Ride. This means that you can visit our site without telling us who you are or revealing any personally identifiable information about yourself.

Online registration and online donations

All information collected as a result of online registration and/or online donations is owned and controlled by Climate Ride. This information is only accessible by those employed or specifically authorized by Climate Ride to operate this website.

Please note that we may use a third-party payment service to process payments. If you wish to make a payment (example: registration fee or donation), your Personal Information may be collected by such third party and not by us and will be subject to the third party’s privacy policy, rather than this Privacy Policy. We have no control over and are not responsible for this third party’s collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information.

The security and safety of your personal and confidential information are of highest priority to us. Please rest assured this website has adopted physical and technological processes and procedures to keep your personal information safe and secure. The personal information you provide when you register online or make an online donation is secured using Secure Socket Layers (“SSL”) encryption technology. This SSL technology prevents such information from being intercepted and read as it is transmitted over the Internet to secure servers.

Anonymous information collected by Climate Ride

Anonymous information is collected from every donor and visitor to this site. This includes pages viewed, date and time, and browser type. IP numbers are not stored but are temporarily used to determine domain type and in some cases, geographic region. We do not make any association between this information and a donor or visitor’s identity. This information is used primarily to track the effectiveness of our website and individual sections and pages within them.

How personal information may be disclosed

Climate Ride will not sell any personal information to any third party. Your personal information may be disclosed under the following circumstances:

• Participant health information and emergency contacts may be shared as necessary to medical and safety personnel for our events as well as with sub contractors and guide services. Contact information may be shared with your team captain, sub contractors, guide services, and representative of your chosen beneficiary(ies) in order to identify and communicate with you. This may include name, email address, phone number, and mailing address.
• Donor information may be shared to identify you to anyone to whom you are sponsoring. This may include name, email address, and mailing address. If you are donating to support the Climate Ride Annual Fund, your name may appear on our website as an acknowledgment of your gift. You have the option during the donation process to remain anonymous, in which case no personal information will be shared with anyone to whom you are sponsoring or to the public via the Climate Ride website.
• Your information may be shared by you on message boards, chat, profile pages and blogs, and other services to which you are able to post information and materials (including, without limitation, our social media Pages). Please note that any information you post or disclose through these services will become public information and may be available to users of those services and to the general public. We urge you to be very careful when deciding to disclose your Personal Information, or any other information, on any social media services.
• Your information may be shared to your friends associated with your social media account, to other website users, and to your social media account provider in connection with your social sharing activity, such as if you connect your social media account to a Climate Ride event registration account. By connecting your Climate Ride event registration and your social media account, you authorize us to share information with your social media account provider, and you understand that the use of the information we share will be governed by the social media site’s privacy policy. If you do not want your Personal Information shared with other users or with your social media account provider, please do not connect your social media account with your Climate Ride event registration account and do not participate in social sharing through the third party fundraising software.

Removing and/or updating personal information

If at any time you would like to update or remove any information stored by Climate Ride of our third-party sites, please contact us. Event participants and donors have access to the information that is stored in our fundraising software through the software itself and may be updated or removed at any time.

For more information

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments about your privacy, please contact us.

Last updated: November 6, 2024.