Athlete Recovery Fund Founder Aaron Cooke On Video Fundraiser

kailee bradstreet

• September 09 2009
• 280 views
• add a comment

Athlete Recovery Fund's Aaron Cooke (right) and Travis Pastrana

Founded in 2007, the Athlete Recovery Fund (ARF) has been working to gain the attention of the action sports industry for more than two years now, and Founder Aaron Cooke has continued to devote countless hours to jump-starting the non-profit organization. For those unfamiliar with Cooke’s efforts, the organization got its start when Cooke decided to help raise money for the medical expenses of pro BMX rider Stephen Murray, who suffered a spinal cord injury while competing  at the 2007 Dew Tour in Baltimore.

“Through everything I learned helping Stephen I knew something had to be started to help the next athlete who may suffer a severe injury,” Cooke says. ARF filed for non-profit status with the IRS in February 2008, and has been working with Alli , the Alliance of Action Sports and ESPN on several fund raising partnerships. In May, Ball Park Franks approached Cooke about a two-minute video campaign in collaboration with TransWorld to raise awareness and funds for ARF. Ball Park has pledged to donate a dollar per view on the two-minute video for up to 100,000 views. So far, the video has surpassed the halfway mark and continues to gain momentum. Cooke answered a few questions about the campaign and what it means for the future of ARF’s mission.

When Ball Park and TW approached you with the idea, what was your initial reaction?
Coincidentally at the time I was contacted I was working on producing a PSA for ARF.  The idea from Ball Park and TransWorld was a whole other level above a PSA and I was pumped right from the start!  I was really impressed by the creativity of making a donation through a viral video and micro site that would live on for an indefinite period of time. It was a one hundred percent original idea that really impressed me.

Has the video helped you gain important exposure? How?
Having the video has created tons of added exposure to ARF.  Alli, the Alliance of Action Sports has been a great partner and even aired the two minute video to the live crowd just before the Skate Park finals at the Wendy’s Invitational in Portland, OR. Because of the opportunity for ARF to benefit from the video being viewed, tons of athletes have posted the embedded video code on their profiles as well. The video itself has also been a great PR piece for ARF and its partners in this project. We have completed several interviews including Fuel TV’s “Dew Underground”, EXPN.com, groupY, Transworld BMX and more! All of this has resulted in more public donations and we are also selling ARF T-shirts for the first time ever on the micro site.  Interestingly more than half of the shirts sold have been to international addresses. Bottom line is that our mission and what we have accomplished so far is getting a lot more attention because of the video.

How close are you to reaching the 100,000 views/$100,000 goal? How far will a contribution like that go towards helping an athlete who has been critically injured?
The video and micro site went live August 13 and most of the press followed in the next week.  As of August 31st we have had 50,656 views. The average time spent on the micro site is also over three minutes so people are watching the video all the way through and browsing its other features.  This attention has exceeded the expectations of Ball Park in a great way.  The embedded code containing the video player was another great idea by TransWorld.  Approximately 20,514 views of our total views have come from people posting the video on their MySpace or Facebook profiles.  The donation that Ball Park has committed to really helps ARF on multiple levels.  As the business plan for ARF dictates, the more money we have in the account the more we can provide to athlete’s in need.  Having these extra funds helps us get closer to our long term goals.  Perhaps just as important when I am out shopping for new donors to get involved it sets the bar pretty high when I talk about Ball Park committing to a $100,000 donation.  It opens doors of opportunity and shows companies getting involved that we are a worthy cause for them to invest in.

What have you observed in general about how willing action sports brands are to get involved and support your cause? What about supporting their own athletes – are there any that offer insurance through the company?

Before filing for non-profit status I already had verbal commitments from Alli, the Alliance of Action Sports and ESPN that they would support the effort.  Make no mistake about it that was no easy task.  Alli was the first to write a donation to ARF. Since then Alli has been instrumental in introducing me to the partners of the Dew Tour. I have been invited to speak at the past two Dew Tour Partner Summits and it has fast tracked my introduction to some companies making donations, including Ball Park.  I think some brands are waiting it out a little bit to see if ARF really takes. There have been several attempts to organize Skate and BMX groups and they have all fallen apart. With programs like www.supportARF.com, it makes a big statement that ARF is here to stay.

I feel like ARF has highlighted the importance of athlete insurance.  We work very hard to understand the barriers that insurance companies and athlete’s face.  ARF has partnered with a couple of insurance brokers and Amanda Savage from S.I.G. (Solomon Insurance Group) has been super successful in writing policies for athletes who were previously told they were uninsurable. Amanda is also working on a program that will help smaller endemic companies with their everyday business insurance needs, as well as opportunities for providing their employees with insurance programs. Amanda and S.I.G. also donate a percentage of their commissions back to ARF. We are also seeing more brands expensing insurance premiums for the athletes they sponsor which is a great step in the right direction. Levi’s was one of the first companies we witnessed to offer this benefit. There is still a large percentage of professional, paid athletes in BMX, FMX and Skateboarding who do not have basic medical insurance. ARF hopes to bring awareness to this issue, and with the help of insurance brokers and brands willing to support the effort we can get more athletes covered.

Besides donating to ARF, how can the action sports community become more involved?
Obviously we survive on donations but the other main source of help we can get is awareness of what we do and who we have helped. Ask questions. ARF has become a source of information for spinal cord injuries, head injuries, air ambulance needs, insurance and more. The more people that understand what we are about the more supporters we have.

For more information, visit www.athleterecoveryfund.com and www.supportARF.com. Watch the video below: