History
Charity Challenges grew out of a twitter conversation between some friends in October of 2013. We wanted something to challenge ourselves through the end of the year and decided on a Pull-Up Challenge that would run through the remainder of the year.
In January of 2014 the first Pull-Up Challenge patches were ordered for what would be the original Pull-Up Challenge. This event was held by All Day Ruckoff, benefited the Green Beret Foundation, and was tracked through terrible spreadsheets.
In September of 2015 (nearly a year and a half later) Kirk Deligiannis (of Mettle Forger) approached Brian Lohr (of All Day Ruckoff) with the idea to expand the Pull-Up Challenge event. The goal was to get more people involved, create a community around it, and raise even more money for charity. Although no one knew it at the time the All Day Ruckoff x Mettle Forger Pull-Up Challenge that ran from 10/1/2015 to 12/31/2015 was the first official Charity Challenges event. It was hosted on a website that was written on a cross-country airplane flight and had minimum functionality… but it worked. The most important part of the website was not the features present but that it validated that something like this could work.
In January of 2016, after the success of the Pull-Up Challenge, the Charity Challenges website was created and the company became what you now see here. The goal of Charity Challenges is to be a fundraiser for charities. This is accomplished by hosting some of the best, and most unique, virtual events you will ever find.
In September of 2016 Charity Challenges Co-Founder Kirk Deligiannis unexpectedly passed away after completing SEALFIT Kokoro. His passing was incredibly unexpected and tragic. He is missed every day. Maria (Kirk’s Wife) has been an incredible help and and has taken on a huge role in Charity Challenges.
If you are curious about this project or wish to get in touch please fill out the contact us form and we will get back to you.
Donations
Most virtual event companies donate “a percentage” of proceeds from their events to charity. The frustrating part with that wording is that most of them never tell you what that percentage is and where it goes. After being frustrated about this numerous times we knew we wanted to be as transparent about this as humanly possible.
Exactly 100% of the net proceeds from our live events, the cornerstone of Charity Challenges, are donated to charity. Other products and perpetual events have variable donation percentages shown below. To date we have donated $210,238 to charity which is something we are very proud of.
| Event/Item Type | % to Charity | % to Operating Costs* |
|---|---|---|
| Live Challenges | 100% | 0% |
| Hero WODs | 100% | 0% |
| Virtual Races | “text-align: center;”>50% | 50% |
| Perpetual Challenges | 25% | 75% |
| SWAG | 25% | 75% |
*Operating Costs: Operating costs are costs beyond putting on the associated event. Examples of thee costs include domain name fees, website hosting, office supplies, and other technology services.
It costs of thousands and thousands of dollars each year to operate the Charity Challenges website, fulfill packages, and give you the experience that you deserve. The goal with having a portion of some event proceeds go towards general operating costs is to make Charity Challenges at a minimum a net-even company.
Our goal here is to donate as much as possible while not losing money in the process. If you can get on board with that we would love to see you at an upcoming event!
Thank you so much for your support!
The Charity Challenges Team