E1 – Biking across Austalia with Rodney Olsen
In this first episode of the Fun with Fundraising podcast, I have interviewed Rodney Olsen, who has biked across Australia multiple times for charity.
Today he is coordinating the bike ride across Australia for Compassion Australia.
Rodney is a very inspiring person and has some great ideas om how to motivate people to donate money for the charity you are raising money for.
On the picture here to the right, you see Rodney with his bike.
The transcribed version of the interview available further down.
Episode Transcript
Diana: Today I’m joined by Rodney Olsen, who is fundraising for compassion Australia. Welcome Rodney, and thank you very much for joining me in this episode.
Rodney: Well, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. It’s good to chat.
Diana: Thank you. You too of course. And what I really want to know first start us is that is how you ended up fundraising in the first place. So, what drew you, because we can make it a lot of fun things in our lives, but what drew you to actually help other people through fundraising?
Rodney: I suppose my story goes back quite a number of years. In fact, back to 1987 was the first time that I took part in a bike-riding fundraiser and that was actually a ride from one side of Australia to the other. So about four and a half thousand kilometers and I saw a little ad in the paper to say that an organization was going to be doing a bike ride from one side of the country to the other.
I don’t know why, I had never been a sporting person, but I thought that sounds very interesting. That’s something I would like to do, an achievement that I would like to do and to raise money for a good cause. And at that stage, it was raising money for literacy materials, for people in developing nations. And I suppose I’ve always had a desire to help people who don’t have the sort of life that I’ve been able to live in a wonderful place like Australia. And so I thought I’d like to take that on. So, I got in touch, and back in 1987 was my first ride from one side of Australia to the other and that’s how it began.
Diana: Wow. That’s quite a bike ride.
Rodney: Indeed.
Diana: How long does that take?
Rodney: So, that first ride that we did, we did it over five weeks. So quite a long time to be on the road day after day with a few rest days thrown in and some very long days of cycling. But yeah, five weeks and of course there was a big lead up to it. So when you’re doing a fundraiser like that, it’s not just the fundraising that takes time, but you have to do the preparation. You have to train if you’re going to be on the bike day after day. But I think that actually feeds into the fundraising part of it.
If people know that you’re prepared to make a big sacrifice, then they’re prepared to give generously. If you give them this picture of, hey, this is what I’m prepared to do. I’m going to train for months and then going to spend five weeks on a bike, traveling all the way across the country then people start being generous. I think it’s, it’s showing them I’m prepared to do what it takes for those people who need to learn to read and write. So, how about you do your part.
Diana: That’s a really great thought, and I have so many questions for that. When you did this as I understand it, still do is it as individual fundraising, or is it a team effort? I know that like money and all goes, but is there some kind of internal competition between the riders and that you have your own fundraising, or is it more like a team thing?
Rodney: It’s a bit of both. So, especially the sorts of rides that I’m doing at the moment. And the last time we did this ride, which is the ride for compassion coast to coast was 2018 and we had 24 cyclists. We were all doing our own fundraising where we all had our own targets to reach, but we would help one another out. A lot of us lived in the same city. So, if someone was going to be running a fundraising dinner to support the ride or putting on a trivia or quiz night or something like that.
We had a common Facebook group and they’d say, hey, I’m running an event. I need three or four people to help me out on the night. So, the rest of us would say, yeah, I’ll jump in and I’ll help you because we knew that if we were going to run an event that we would need help as well. So it meant that we could actually reduce the cost of the fundraising events that we were running because we could get other volunteers to help out as well.
Diana: That’s so smart. So there is not just actually a really long bike ride. It’s also putting on smaller events, like for an evening, with a quiz or for dinner or stuff like that. So, it’s actually a lot of smaller events that you guys are putting on for this huge main event to actually become even more important in some way, or are you going to collect even more funds.
Rodney: Yeah, certainly. So, we have the opportunity to just talk to friends, to workmates, to family, to any contacts that we have, and ask them for a direct donation, but we know that not everyone is going to respond that way. I always find in a fundraiser that you need to have a number of, I guess, ways to reach out to people because some will respond to something that another person won’t.
So, when I ask someone who’s a close friend if they’ll support me. Then they might say, yeah, well here’s a donation and they’ll give me an amount. Whereas people that are a little further removed from it, they might say are, yeah, I’ll give a little bit, but if you invite them to a dinner where they hear the whole story of this is what it’s going to take for us to cross Australia by bicycle.
These are the sorts of days that we’re going to spend training in the lead up to it. These are the difficulties that we’re going to experience on the ride and we give them a grand picture of what we’re going to do. Then they’re going to be able to say yes, I want to be right behind that because it goes from being about friendship to supporting a cause because there’s a certain amount of fundraising that we can do just by the nature that we have good friends who want to support the things that we’re doing. But beyond that, we need to reach out to people who, for whatever reason want to support a good cause. We want to put that good cause in front of them in a way that most motivates them and excites them to give towards that cause.
Diana: How do you do that then? Say you guys are doing a dinner as prep for this and to motivate people to donate. How do you get the word out about this dinner? Because I’m thinking as I hear you, it’s not necessarily people you know, that would attend this dinner.
Rodney: It can sometimes be friends of friends and that’s the opportunity that you have that you can ask a friend, but you don’t have access to their friends. So, if you’re able to say, hey, why don’t you come along, bringing some friends? And I guess there are two ways that I’ve done this in the past or seen it been done for a fundraising dinner. It depends on where people are and decide what they want to do but some people will put on a very high priced dinner. So, they’ll get someone who’s able to cater and do a really nice meal for people and they’ll charge a premium price and so that the fundraising is built into that. So, they might be charging a large amount for someone to come along for a very nice dinner.
That works because you have a big margin where that money then goes to the charity or the fundraising that you’re doing. The other way and I’ve tried this one a bit more often is to have a dinner that doesn’t cost as much, but we let people know in the invitation when you come you will hear about our fundraising effort and you will be given an opportunity to give. Because I think if people just came along for dinner and they weren’t expecting to be asked to make another donation, they don’t come prepared. But if you say in the invitation, hey, look, you’re getting dinner at a reasonable price, and you’re going to hear about this big adventure then people will come along and once they’ve heard what you say they will give.
For instance, on a night like that for a dinner, you can talk to local businesses and ask for items that you can auction and oftentimes local business, just for the sake of getting a mention at a dinner like that. if you can, you know, Bob’s grocery store has donated this hamper of food, then they know that they’re associated with a good cause and that’s good for their business. But it also means if you auction that item off because it’s been donated every dollar that you make on that auction item goes to the cause. So, there are various ways of, using a dinner or some kind of event like that to put the need before people but also to raise considerable funds.
Diana: That’s really amazing to have multiple streams of income. If you can put it in that way to be able to donate. Are you also having sponsors on your bikes or on your clothes when you’re biking?
Rodney: We certainly are. One of the things that we do is because we want to defray the costs. We want to reduce our costs as much as possible so that those people taking part in the ride aren’t paying a lot because on these particular rides, all of our participants, both the riders and their support group, they are actually paying to be on this trip. That’s certainly another thing that we make our potential donors aware of that, hey we’re making a sacrifice here. We’d like you to make a sacrifice too.
So, we will pay an amount, but we want to bring those costs way down so that we’re not making it unattainable for someone to do this. So, then we’ll speak to larger businesses and say, would you like your logo on the team jerseys? Would you like us to take photos of the team in significant places as we cross the country? So, you can use that in social media, because one of the effects of that, if a company can be seen to be associated with a good cause such as Compassion Australia and the work that we do in releasing children from poverty. If they can be seen to be associated with that, then that’s absolute gold for them.
So, we will offer to take photos along the way wearing our team shirts with their logos on, or, if they’ve paid for, for something else and they have a logo on the side of one of our support vehicles. We’ll get the team around that logo on the support vehicle, get a photo, get that back to them. So that as the ride goes on, they’re able to put it that on social media. So, it does two things. One, it says to their customers this is a business that actually cares more for other causes, not just for the bottom line. Obviously, they’re in business to make money but they care for more than that on top. But it also says to the employees that we are here not just to make money, but we’re here for the greater good for our community.
So, it engenders a greater culture within that local business, but it also engenders warmth amongst their potential customers and their customers. So, that’s the sort of thing we do as you say, to get a logo on the side of one of our support vehicles or on our jerseys, then that money can be used as a donation towards the cause or to defray the costs of the actual ride across the country so that more money that is raised can go directly to the children in poverty.
Diana: That sounds really good. How much money do you guys collect on a ride? For each person who enters, how much do you expect to raise?
Rodney: We ask each person who signs up to ride as part of Ride for Compassion Coast to Coast to raise $10,000 or to get 10 children sponsored because we’re an organization that gives people the opportunity to sponsor a child living in poverty and to be walking along the journey with them over a number of years to provide what is needed. So, what we do is we say you can either do one or the other. Either $10,000, we’ll get 10 children sponsored through your friends and family or a combination.
So, for instance, if someone says I want to ride and they have three people in their immediate sphere of influence who says, I will sponsor a child and so they get three children sponsored, then they only have to raise $7,000 in cash. Now that’s a very big amount and we say to people what we’re going to do is we’re going to provide support. So, as I was saying earlier with our little Facebook group, our closed group, when we say, I need a hand doing this and we swap ideas amongst ourselves. We make sure that each rider has a close group of friends that is able to support them so that they’re not having to do all that training and all the fundraising on their own.
So, It can seem quite daunting, but I think one of the significant things that we do is to, help people understand how to break that down into smaller amounts. So, even when it comes down to some of the fundraisings that are not just an event-based thing but in asking people directly for money, I’m a big believer that we need to break it down into manageable parts so that we can say, hey, where we’re going to be on the road for 32 days all up, 28 riding days and maybe they’ll say, hey, look, we’re going to do 28 days of writing as part of this month and a bit across Australia.
Then they do the math and they work it out and say, that means I need this amount for each of those riding days and get down into those amounts. So, will you be someone who can commit to giving me that amount or to say, look, I need this many people to give me $200 or this many people to give me $50 or to break it down into amounts where there’s an expectation for that person to stop their normal pattern of thinking and say, can you consider it? What I found is that a lot of the times those amounts that you break it down into people don’t give those amounts. They will give either more or less. But what it does is it stops them from the normal reaction.
A lot of us are used to having kids from the local school that is doing a lapathon for something where they’re running around their school oval and raising funds or they’re doing something else that’s a fundraiser and they say, will you help? We’ll put our hand in our pocket and we’ll find we have a $5 note and so we’ll give them the $5 because I like to help a good cause. What have I got here? And we hand it to them.
Now, if we’re doing a bike ride across Australia, We can’t afford for a person to just have that immediate reaction of what’s in my wallet at the moment. Okay. You’re going a long way, here’s $10. We want them to understand the magnitude of it. Still, if all they can afford is $5 or $10 or that’s what they would like to give that’s absolutely fine, but if it stops them in their tracks for a little while if it makes them think, oh yeah, this is kind of a big deal. They’re training for months and months and months. They need to reach this particular target. Maybe I can give them $100 instead of that $10 or maybe I can give them $200 or $50 instead of that 10.
So, I think a lot of it is, being able to sell this picture to people of, what we’re actually doing. If we don’t start with that if we get the initial reaction of I’m going on a bike ride, will you support me? Then it’s going to be the $5 or the $10 and we don’t get an opportunity to go back. So, we need to paint that big picture before we ask them to contribute.
Diana: That’s an amazing point. It really is. It’s about framing in some way. That you’re telling people that it’s a higher amount that’s actually needed as you said, then they can form their opinion from that. I think that’s really cool. We talked a bit before we started the interview and you went from joining this first bike ride till now you’re one of the coordinators or the coordinator.
Rodney: Yeah. So, things changed along the way. In that my early bike rides, I was a rider but very quickly became involved In helping to organize in a number of different cases where I was fundraising for various events and using bike rides as a way to do that. But even though I’m heading up the rides now I feel that if I’m asking other people to fundraise and I’m putting a big target in front of them then I need to do that as well. So, in that sense, I’m just another rider. I need to raise that much money as well. I need to go to my friends and family. I need to be putting on my fundraising events as well as just being a rider, taking the coordination right out of the picture, because if I’m asking others to step up and do this, then I need to show that I’m prepared to do it as well.
Diana: I would probably get a bit overwhelmed thinking of doing that long of a bike ride. What would you suggest if I wanted it to just do something? Could it be arranging a bike ride around the city I’m living in or is there something where you could take it a bit down?
Rodney: Yeah. In fact, we are doing these rides, the ones Ride across Australia. We did it in 2018 and we’re doing another one next year. So, there are three years in between. In those intervening years where we’re doing a one week ride. So, it’s still bigger than just riding around the city, but we’re doing smaller rides. I’ve also seen very effectively used just a one day ride or a morning ride or something like that. It comes down to two things. Certainly, I’ve been talking about the fact that we need to paint a picture of the magnitude of the ride when we’re going all the way across Australia because that’s going to capture people’s attention. But we also want to make sure that we’re telling people what the cause is because that’s going to draw them in. That’s going to make them want to give.
Now on a smaller ride where we’re wanting to lean a little bit the other way, and maybe go first of all, with the cause and bring people in on that and to say, because I believe so much in this cause I’m going to be doing this ride around the city where I’m going to ride 20 kilometers on one day. I don’t normally ride this far but I believe so much in this course that I’m going to do this ride. So, I think that any ride Is going to be helpful in this way that we attach that activity whether it’s a ride or a run or a jog or something like that.
We attach that activity, just say I’m prepared to move out of my comfort zone and do something different and I want you to be able to support this good cause. I’m doing it because I believe in this cause. I think that’s an important part of fundraising. We don’t want people to come along on this bike ride, especially the one all the way across Australia if they’re just there for a bike ride. That might be the first thing that attracts them. That it’s something to tick off the bucket list that I’ve ridden all the way across a very large country so that attracts them in but I’ve also got to believe in that cause because they want to be telling people, I don’t believe that children should be living in poverty.
These are some of the stories that we’ve heard of children living in poverty and we don’t think that’s right. We’ve heard of families who are living where they don’t have access to clean water. They don’t have kitchen facilities or bathroom facilities in their home and they don’t have access to good food. We don’t think that’s right when we have so much. So, we need to be passionate about the cause and that’s got to come across as well. So, we marry both that activity and the cause together and I think that makes a more compelling opportunity for someone to give.
Diana: We were talking a bit before, as well about you tried other kinds of fundraising ideas. Have you ever tried something that just didn’t work? It might’ve been a great idea, but or some reason it just didn’t work.
Rodney: I’ll tell you what I think doesn’t work and that even comes in into line with this ride. and I’ve seen people try this. That is people who, because they might have a lot of friends on Facebook for instance, or in other social media they’ll think, ah, look I’ve got 400 or 500 friends on social media. If each of them gave me this amount of money, you know, if each of them gave me $10 or whatever it might be then I’m going to reach my goal. So, they’ll put something on social media and then they’ll just watch and nothing happens. I’ve seen people be very disappointed and think, oh, my friends don’t care.
What we’ve got to realize is that social media is a great way to connect in some ways. But if we’re asking someone to part with their hard-earned money we need to give them a good reason. We’ve got to show that there’s a bit more of we’re taking a risk, we’re making an effort and we’d like them to. I know it’s old school but instead of doing a post on Facebook, we want to write them a letter. Sometimes a handwritten letter is the best opportunity to say, hey, you know what I’m not just sending a circular letter around to 500 people that are on my Facebook feed. I’m sending you a personal letter because I’m inviting you to actually be concerned about the things that concern me.
I’m concerned about children living in poverty and I want you to join me in that concern and here’s how you can respond. Now not everyone will respond and I guess that’s sometimes the disappointment. We can think, oh, look, this person, I know that they’re doing really well. They’ve got a good job. They’re making a good income and they don’t even respond. They don’t give you any money. The way that I’ve thought about that over the years is I don’t know what they’re doing privately, what good causes that they are already giving to. So, I don’t have a right to feel bad about them not giving. I just think, well, you know what? They might be giving somewhere else. They might not but that’s none of my business. If they don’t choose to give that’s fine. I have found that when I’ve made a personal approach to a range of people, sometimes it’s the most unexpected people, the people that you thought, I didn’t think that they had a lot of money and yet they give a large gift.
So, we want to be honest. We want to be open. We want to give people that opportunity but don’t rely on just social media, putting up posts on Facebook, or putting something on Instagram or Twitter. It’s not going to actually bring you the result. It’s good as a backup. When you sent a personal letter to a lot of friends and then you put a reminder on Facebook and they think, ah, that’s right. Rodney sent me a letter about this, and he is going on that bike ride. I haven’t got around to responding, now’s my opportunity. So, that’s one thing that I have found that doesn’t work. A lot of people think it’s going to be easy. I’ll put it on Facebook. I’ll put it on Twitter but it’s not going to do the job for you.
Diana: You’re so right and I think the letter thing is amazing because it’s kind of an element of surprise, at least the first time, right. Nobody sends real letters anymore so getting something like that would be amazing. I would love that. What about the negative replies? Have you ever gotten anyone who got mad or who got angry? How do you respond to that kind of behavior?
Rodney: I haven’t generally had people get mad because I’m actually sending letters to people that I know or that are acquaintances. Most of the time even if they’re angry, they might not tell you because they don’t want to ruin a friendship they just think, I’m not going to do this. But you do get some responses and this is where you need to know the cause that you’re raising funds for. When someone comes back to you and says, oh yeah, but I know about charities, all the money goes on admin and on advertising and none of it gets to the children. So, you need to have the confidence to be able to say, well actually, in this case, the organization that I’m raising funds for, and in my case for Compassion Australia, there are several levels of, auditing that go on.
There are external people that look at various charities and Compassion, always rates very highly for financial integrity and for governance principles, and for just that transparency. So, I can talk about those things, but you have to be prepared. You’re right there will be some people who are not prepared to give and it might not be an anger thing, but it might just be dismissing you and I’ve found that there are two sorts of people that will come up with those sorts of answers. There are some who just want an excuse because they don’t want to give. Again, I don’t want to hold it against anyone. It’s their money. It’s their right to give it or not to give it. If that’s just an excuse you’re not going to convince them, but there are other people that have that genuine concern because there have been charities that have misused money and they’ve heard those stories.
They’ve heard about children. They’ve heard about other people in great need where the money has gone astray and, you know, there might be corruption along the way or whatever has happened. So, they don’t want to give money for it just to be taken away and the people that they want helped don’t get help. So, that’s why I think we need to be very sure about the organizations that we’re raising funds to understand some of their structures. That’s why I’m very happy to raise money for Compassion because I’ve seen it in action. I’ve seen the integrity. I’ve seen the auditing process. I’ve seen the note-taking. I’ve seen the files and files and files that go into ensuring that the money is going to get to where we say it’s going to go.
Diana: What you would suggest is to actually get to know the charity and how the money is actually spent because it’s easier for you to talk to people about it if you know all these things.
Rodney: Sometimes you can’t know every answer and so if someone comes up and says, oh, look, you know, I’m I supported such and such charity that you’re raising funds for from your walk-a-thon or whatever it might be that you’re doing. Look, this is what I heard. If you don’t have the facts, because most people that are taking part in a charity fundraiser, they don’t work for the organization. So, they don’t have all that information. First of all, need to get as much information as we can at the start so that we’re reasonably well versed in what the organization is doing.
There’s always going to be those questions we don’t have the answers to, and we need to be sure not to try and make it up but to say, that’s an interesting point you raised. I don’t have an answer for that but I’m going to talk to the local person that works for XYZ charity and I’ll come back to you with an answer. I think we show integrity when we do that. If we don’t have an answer and yet we’re thinking this is an organization that I want to support because I believe in what they’re doing, then we’ll want to not only raise the funds but if there is someone who has a concern and there’s that concern in the community then we want to be able to answer that. So, by saying I’m not sure about that but I’m going to get the answer and I’m going to get back to you within a couple of days. I think that shows integrity too.
Diana: I totally agree. If you are not Australian, can you participate in your ride for Compassion anyway?
Rodney: Absolutely. We would love to make it an international ride. We have at the moment, a couple of people in the US who are strongly considering coming on the ride. It starts in September 2021. So, there’s still time
Diana: Plenty of time to get in shape.
Rodney: To get in shape, to do the fundraising, for the borders to open again and for people to be able to make it here in time. There’s plenty of time for that. So, yes we’ve had a couple of expressions of interest from people in the US. We’ve had one gentleman in the Netherlands who is interested in coming. So, there have been a couple of expressions of interest from people outside of Australia and we would welcome them because Compassion works in 25 developing nations around the world, but we have 12 partner countries. So, countries like Australia and Canada, the UK, and others. So, we have people in those countries who are also raising funds in various ways for children living in poverty.
So, we’re trying to get the word out to them at the moment, if they would like to come along. As I mentioned before there are two sorts of people that will generally take part in a big ride like this. First of all, there are those who want to tick something off their bucket list and they think that this is a great opportunity, but they need to be absolutely sure that the cause is worthwhile as well. So, they say, yep, I’d like to do this bike ride and I’ve heard about Compassion. I’ve read up. I can trust them. So, therefore I’ll do this and there are other people who believe so much in the cause of releasing children from poverty that they will say I’m going to train and be ready for this.
But what I find is within the first couple of weeks of a big ride like this, you ask the question, okay, who started this? Just because it was a biking adventure and you’ll see, half the hands go up. Who joined because they cared so much for the children and they were prepared to get fit and do this? And the other half of the hands go up. Then I say, who is here and getting back on your bike every morning now only for the sake of the children? Every hand goes up because the focus changes once we start to learn more and more about the cause that we’re fundraising for. I think that’s a great thing where you’re all on one cause.
I’d say another thing that does feed into the fundraising although it’s after most of the fundraising is done, but you want to make sure that the people that are participating in a fundraising event know about your organization and continuing to act in a way that shows that they care for the cause. For instance, on the 2018 ride, each morning before we’d get on our bike, we would read the story of another child that had been helped through Compassion, through some very difficult circumstances. So, when the days got long and that the headwinds were pushing us backward and we were struggling, then everyone who was on their bike, we could think about, you know what, this is hard but I’m not going to give up because I remember the story about that child that we heard about this morning and today I’m riding for them.
Diana: That’s a really good idea,
Rodney: Absolutely. They’ve got to know that there’s more at stake here than just a bike ride because the idea of the bike ride can grow old very quickly when the times get tough. So, we need to, have that cause. Just in the same way as I was saying earlier, that when we’re actually going to people and asking them to contribute, we need to be able to give them this big picture of what the ride’s about. The enormity of riding all the way across the country but also about the enormity of the issue that we’re seeking to solve and that is children in poverty so that people will grasp onto both of those.
We need to know that those things are present for the people that are fundraising and on the bike ride as well. Because some days the bike riding is an absolute joy, other days it becomes a really difficult day after day away from family and just pushing on. So, we need to have that knowledge that we’re not just doing this for ourselves, which means that well, we could give up because we’re no longer committed to it right now but it’s actually for the children that we serve and then we say I’m still committed and I’m going to go every last kilometer until we get to the other side of the country.
Diana: That’s great. If people would like to know more about you guys and you or the charity, where would they go to find you?
Rodney: The easiest place to go is rideforcompassion.com. If people go to rideforcompassion.com, they’ll be able to read a little bit more about it. There’s a little 60-second video that gives people an understanding of the sort of adventure that they’re going to be on and that there’s sort of a sense of community that we’re able to engender in a group of bike riders. It tells you about where the money is going to. It gives you links to Compassion so you can read about the cause and say, yeah, this is something I can get behind. But it also has a button there where people can press the button, fill in a few details, and register their interest.
What I’m doing with everyone who registers interest is I’m making a personal phone call to them. Obviously, if they’re outside Australia, then I will arrange a time that’s suitable for them that we can talk and I will ring and we will talk through what about the bike ride inspires you? How can we make this work for you? How can we support you so that you get to do something that you really want to do, which is right across the country and support children in poverty? How can we make that work for you? We have that discussion and if they say, yep, I’m interested, then we’ll send them a link to register and we go through the processes and start the training, start the fundraising, and then September next year, we get to get on the road and enjoy a huge adventure together.
Diana: I really, really hope you get a lot of riders next year. It would be such an amazing cause to help get some funds in to just have your best year ever. That would be amazing.
Rodney: Yeah, we would love that. I mean, especially in the time of the pandemic. The United Nations have said that this is actually likely to push 71 million people back into extreme poverty. I’m not sure if you’ve seen some of the statistics over the year but over previous decades, for quite some time, the level of extreme poverty in our world has been going down. As we’ve made concerted efforts to release people from poverty that has been very effective, and we’ve been able to do that. But this is the first time in many decades that the level of poverty in our world is going to go up because many people are in countries where there are no safety nets where there’s nothing to do.
If you don’t work, you don’t eat. We’re finding that of course, people can’t leave their homes. The governments are saying you need to stay in your home to protect our nation from the pandemic, that they can’t work therefore they can’t earn and they can’t eat. So, the world is in a very difficult spot at the moment and we’re determined to make a difference, we’re determined to step in and help as many as we can.
So, if people are interested in doing something and a lot of us have been locked down in various places around this world. I’m saying to people make a point of doing something really special when the borders start to open. When we’re able to leave our towns and leave our homes make a point of doing something really special and this will certainly be something amazing.
Diana: Thank you. It really will. Rodney, thank you for wanting to help tell your story about your bike rides and Compassion Australia. I think it’s amazing work that you’re doing and yeah. Just thank you for wanting to share. It’s amazing.
Rodney: Thank you for the opportunity.