2017-April-20
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Bikes for Children
In my day job, I am a Partner Account Manager but I also volunteer as the Italian leader of the Cisco Citizen Network. In this role, I have the opportunity to use my passion to manage collaboration events with some Italian NPOs (nonprofit orgs) to further develop our Company culture of giving back.
In October 2016, I joined more than 40 colleagues supporting the NPO Sport Senza Frontiere during a Special Time2Give initiative, Bikes For Children. We biked across Italy for 9 days and 800 Km (about 90 km a day) in the ancient way of the Francigena pilgrimage, for a bike tour full of social, spiritual and sportive meanings.
Each Cisco rider used 5 days of their Time2Give benefit and also gave up their weekends to bike for this worthwhile cause.
To organize and prepare for this ride the team used Cisco Spark rooms to communicate with each other, sharing everything from training and technical tips, logistics, and what to pack. Some colleagues were more expert riders than others, but none of us had ever biked for so many consecutive days.
The ride itself was often difficult, it rained for three out of the 9 days, with a mix of terrain (50% asphalt and 50% dirt) with lots hills with some very strong climbs. And biking for 9 consecutive days without one day of rest, was a huge physical challenge.
At the end of each day’s ride, to keep costs low, we rested in pilgrimage sites and convents, often in large dormitories. The route and rest sites, were pre-checked by Stefano Drusian our road manager, who alone, had completed the bike ride a week before.
We had a support team for the ride, two mini vans which carried equipment for any bike maintenance needed on route, a sports doctor and medical supplies. We also had three cars driven by cisco volunteers to carry the riders’ luggage.
With the goal of fundraising for disadvantaged children, we leveraged the human network– we involved Italian start up Starteed, as Technological Sponsor, who built a dedicated crowdfunding platform. All our bikes promoted each riders personal fundraising page, and we proposed sponsorship packages which we offered to our Cisco Partners, to create an innovative and successful fundraising event. Each Cisco rider used 5 days of their Time2Give benefit and also gave up their weekends to bike for this amazing cause.
The results were fantastic, we raised €70.000,00 for Sports Senza Frontiere which will fund 70 disadvantaged children who would not usually get the opportunity, to take part in a three-year Sport program which includes free healthcare.
When you have a dream and work for a special Company like Cisco where people love to support local Communities to grow you can create an awesome activity like Bikes for Children. This experience confirmed that a group of motivated colleagues with the same objective can really push themselves beyond their limits. They are used to putting passion in everything they do and here they believed that "A child's smile is worth hundreds of miles!”.
I love working for a Company where Giving Back is an important part of its People Deal and culture and who put in place several amazing programs like Time2Give and Matching Gifts to support employees who are volunteering to make a difference in their communities.
The business lessons I have learnt working at Cisco, gave me the confidence to successfully manage such important event and leverage the opportunity to connect a whole network of people that helped me to launch an innovative giving back event which benefitted everyone who took part.
I personal lesson I learnt during this event is, it’s not the final target that is important to reach but the journey you took to reach it. We definitely got back from this experience much more than what we gave–it was a perfect mix of effort, emotion and fun!
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