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hello everyone,
I'd love to get your help.
I’ve spent nearly 20 years at the heart of mountain bike advocacy and campaigning. I know how hard it can be to raise even a small amount of funding to kick off a project. But I’ve also seen the amazing impact that even modest support can have.
I’ve watched people gain confidence through beginner ride groups - Peaks Pootles anyone? I’ve seen neglected trails come alive thanks to volunteer crews. I’ve seen mountain bikers lead the charge in protecting fragile landscapes and uniting outdoor communities. But all of that starts with one thing: a first show of faith—just a little support. That’s what The Trail Pot is here to provide.
I believe deeply in what mountain biking can do for people and places—because I’ve seen it. And what inspired my love for this community was throwing (i think) £20 at this site to become singletrackworld.
And now I need your help. I'd love you to throw some spare change at The Trail Pot. I'd love it even more if you could make it a regular thing.
And I know I can make it work for mountain biking. Please throw some cash at a potentially brilliant future.
There's a risk this sounds cynical so I'd better say right at the start, it's not, I think it sounds awesome and I've just donated... I don't have any actual money but I'm selling a load of parts and I reckon that's a good way to do it, any time you make a good sale or sell something you weren't sure would go or forgot you had, that's not real money right? 🙂
But I'd like to know more than I see on the website and I think maybe if we did know more, it'd help get donations, boost confidence and defeat cynicism? It launched in 2024 I think and I don't see anything about any grants being made yet. Which is absolutely reasonable, donations might be slow starting, applications can be slow too especially if it's a scheme that's dependent on the funds before it breaks dirt. But I guess for transparency and for inspiration it'd be nice to have some idea how much they've received and what's likely to happen with it- what might already be happening or be in the pipeline, or even some theoretical examples of the sort of project they'd like to fund, to give us a shape? Especially if there's already been seed funds or small tool grants or similiar. Does anyone know if we have that sort of info? It's pretty standard with kickstarters etc to show a barometer of donations.
(I used to help fundraise for a small charity fund at my work, and the first £1000 took absolutely forever but the day we announced that we'd broken £10000 we got £1000 in about 5 minutes, and when we announced our first actual grants we literally got more that day than we'd got in the 6 months before, success breeds success and boosts credibility and confidence)
Hi northwind- perfectly reasonable!
I'm on my phone right now so can't really do full update- but here's something from our insta that updates a bit.
But yes you're right - we're in "filling the pot" mode now and will be for some time yet.
Thanks Pook! Good info.
Oh just to add, the about us/events/contacts/faqs tabs on the bottom right of the splash screen don't work in either of my browsers
We're just looking at a refresh of the web site so that'll be on my list!
Is this the third or fourth thread on this Trail Pot? I'm trying to remember if there was a STW article on it too.
BikeBiz did an interview with me - bit more meat on the bones
https://bikebiz.com/bikebiz-column-trail-pot-lets-have-a-chat/amp/