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1982
In 1982 Dan Pallotta was a junior at Harvard University. He had been the undergraduate
chairperson for the Harvard Hunger Action Committee, a student organization
trying to help the poor and the dispossessed in the developing countries of
the world, and trying to raise awareness about the gravity of world hunger
mortality statistics — 25 million people dying every year of hunger and hunger-related
disease — two thirds of them children. That translated into 40,000 people
dying every day. Dan was frustrated by what he felt was the inadequacy of
his own student organization's response to the problem. They were organizing
two campus-wide fasts every year, but he wanted to do something much bigger
and much bolder.
One day in the summer of 1982, Dan was riding his bike from
his parents' home in Melrose, Massachusetts to Nahant Beach. On the way back,
he heard a radio story from the transistor radio on his handlebars about two
young men who had just completed a bike ride across the entire continental
United States to raise money for the Jimmy Fund, a Boston-based cancer research
funding source. That gave him the big idea he was looking for. A bike ride
across America, with a large group of students. It would be epic. It would
be demanding, challenging, bold, and frightening. Finally, here was an idea
that was the appropriate metaphor for the sad journey of hunger and starvation
— an arduous journey across a continent. It began Dan's search for great traveling
journeys that would symbolize two things — the sorrowful journeys of the world's
suffering people, and the determination of all those good people who do not
want to stand idly by.
1983
After a year of organizing, Dan and 38 other Harvard students boarded a plane
at Boston's Logan Airport for the six-hour flight to Seattle. Their bikes
were all in boxes, and they were both afraid and excited by the long journey
ahead of them. Sixty-nine days and 4,256 miles later they arrived in Boston
Massachusetts, where they had started it all a year earlier. They had traveled
across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, up and over the Rocky Mountains at Togwotee
Pass (over 11,000 feet) across the great corn fields of Nebraska, through
Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, and then on up through Washington and the Alleghenies.
They rode through the streets of Manhattan. They were interviewed by Bryant
Gumbel on the "Today Show." They rode around Shea Stadium to the tune of "Chariots
of Fire" while the crowd gave them a teary standing ovation. They raised some
$70,000, had appeared on over 40 local television news programs across the
nation raising awareness of the plight of the hungry, and, when it was all
said and done, they felt inadequate no more. They felt as if they had risen
to the promise of their potential — that they were, in fact, at the very edge
of it — that they had no more to give than this. They were spent, and they
felt that that was as it should be. "Ride for Life" would be the inspiration
for Pallotta TeamWorks, but it wouldn't be born for another ten years.
Click here to view a map
of the "Ride for Life" route.
1991
After seven years in Los Angeles writing songs and trying to become a rock
star, Dan decided to put his guitars away for a while and started a small fundraising
consulting practice called, "The Daniel Pallotta Company." He started it in
the one of the bedrooms of his two-bedroom apartment in Hollywood. The company
did private foundation grant research and grant-writing, major gift development
consulting, and direct-mail design for a variety of charities, including American
Oceans Campaign, the Blind Childrens' Center, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian
Community Services Center, The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute
of Science, St. Anne's Maternity Home, the Arthritis Foundation, and other
institutions.
1993
Like many of our event participants, by this time, Dan had lost a lot of friends
to AIDS. Sunday memorial services were becoming as frequent as Sunday worship
services at West Hollywood churches. His company had three or four employees,
and was now called "Pallotta and Associates." He began to feel the same sense
of inadequacy to the problem of AIDS as he had felt to the issue of world
hunger back in 1982. People were dying. It wasn't pretty. Young men in the
prime of their lives were being fitted for diapers and caskets. "It was our
Viet Nam," he felt, and he felt that there was no bold enough opportunity
out there for him and his friends to express their grief, their passion, or
their determination. He felt it was time for another bold journey. He had
the idea for a bike ride down the coast of California — shorter than "Ride
for Life," but challenging and demanding and frightening nonetheless. "Like
most of us, I had this dream," Dan says, "but I let all those negative voices
get in there and discourage me for about a year — you know, 'no one will want
to do it," "it will be way too expensive," "no one will be able to get the
time away from work," "it will be a huge flop," and all that kind of stuff.
It discouraged me for a long time. But then one day I went to see this movie
called, "Alive," about the Uruguayan soccer team whose plane crashes in the
Andes Mountains. I saw the determination of these people. Three months, stranded.
No equipment. No food. No hope. Yet they breached the Andes and found their
way to rescue. It blew me over. It woke me from my sleep. It reminded me,
once again, of the awesome, unstoppable power of the human spirit. I walked
out of the movie theater and said to my friend Ritch, 'that's it, we're going
to do the AIDSRide.' We started work on the planning the very next day.
1994 — $1 million to charity
The very first California AIDSRide, Presented by Tanqueray, grosses $1.54
million against a $1 million goal, and nets $1 million for the Los Angeles
Gay and Lesbian Services Center, that put their faith in Dan and his company
and invested the seed money to get the event launched. With 200 sponsorship
proposals sent out, only one company said "yes" — Tanqueray, with a huge contribution
of $120,000 in cash and hundreds of thousands more in other forms of support.
478 people rode their bikes for 565 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Asked to raise $2,000 each, the average rider ended up raising closed to $3,100.
1995 — $7.6 million to charity
California AIDSRide Presented by Tanqueray triples in size, with over 1,800
riders and $5.5 million in gross donations. The very first Boston>New York
AIDSRide, budgeted to gross $4 million, grosses a whopping $7.4 million, becoming,
in its first year, the most successful AIDS fundraiser in U.S. history.
1996 — $13 million to charity
The company produces five AIDSRides that gross a total of $25 million.
1997 — $15.4 million to charity
The company's name changes to "Pallotta TeamWorks." Dan brings the idea of
the 3-Day to Avon, and discussions begin about launching the event in Los
Angeles. The company also produces, "The GTE Big Ride Across America" for
the American Lung Association. It becomes the largest cross-country bike ride
in American history, with over 725 riders bicycling across the entire continent.
1998 — $19 million to charity
As the AIDSRides continue, the first Breast Cancer 3-Day is launched in Los
Angeles. 2,288 women walk for sixty miles from Santa Barbara to Malibu, and
the event nets $4.2 million for early detection services for under-served
women — nearly twice what it was budgeted to net.
1999 — $33.7 million to charity
The 3-Days expand to four cities, including Chicago, New York, and Atlanta.
2000 — $63.5 million to charity
The company grows by nearly 100%, and, for the first year in its history,
gross donations for the year exceed $100 million. The 3-Days expand to three
additional cities, including Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco,
and, in their first year, the new 3-Days break virtually every record in the
fundraising books. California AIDSRide tops its all-time record raising over
$11.1 million, becoming the most successful AIDS fundraiser in U.S. history.
In addition, Pallotta TeamWorks steps up the battle against
AIDS in a serious way. Financing its own event for the first time, the company
undertakes one of its bravest and most daring events to date — the Alaska
AIDS Vaccine Ride, developed specifically to fund a vaccine for AIDS — the
only answer for the impoverished masses around the globe who lack access to
the expensive western miracle drugs. Global HIV infections now total over
34 million, with 31 million of those being among the poorest of the world's
poor. Experts predict a death toll worse than the Black Plague in the coming
years — 75 million deaths over the next twenty years if a vaccine is not found.
Budgeted to net $3.5 million, the first PTW Alaska AIDS Vaccine Ride nets
$4.1 million for three of the nation's top university research teams. 1,500
riders and volunteer 400 crew brave snow in the passes of the Alaska Range
on the company's most epic journey to date — a 500 mile ride for six days
from Fairbanks to Anchorage.
2001 — $69 million to charity
In 2001, the event slate was expanded even more as Avon Breast Cancer
2002 — Expanding to 24 events
In 2002, Pallotta TeamWorks will produce 13 Avon Breast Cancer
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