I’m often amazed by the people who donate to my charity rides. Granted, I’m harassing people mainly through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and many are probably donating with the hope I’ll leave them alone. But, people still support me.

In addition to many people who regularly step forward to donate to every charity ride I sign up for, I often receive donations from unexpected people who send in some amount of their hard-earned funds — those whom I’ve never actually met, or those whom I’ve not been in touch with for a long time, or those whom I haven’t known for very long. On all fronts, it’s very touching. There are a few friends who are constantly among the first ones and I can only be humbled by their enthusiastic support.

Last week, our Team-in-Training LA Cycle team kicked off a “100 donations in 100 hours” challenge, and for this I tried a new approach for fundraising on Facebook. This year, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society added the ability for us to connect our fundraising donation pages to Facebook’s Fundraiser function, and this added a novel and powerful way to reach out to my network. Instead of just posting a status update with my request for a donation and the link to my donation page (which leaves the post vulnerable to Facebook’s algorithms and susceptible to being quickly lost to the timeline ether), the Facebook Fundraiser allowed me to specifically invite people to my fundraiser on Facebook, complete with sending notifications and reminders to the recipients. People could donate to my campaign without having to leave Facebook, and their donation would be recorded on my LLS donation page.

I kicked off the challenge using this Facebook Fundraiser and finished in the top 3 of fundraising for my team for the week, which was a surprise to me (I’ve never been a top fundraiser in the two previous years that I’ve done this ride). I received the most donations in one week that I’ve ever experienced, and exceeded my goal with over two months to go before my ride. This was unprecedented.

So, thanks to all of you who donated in support of my bike ride for the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. With your help, I exceeded my fundraising goal and most importantly, vital funds are going to services and research to help blood cancer patients.

With my ride in support of LLS taking place on June 2, I’m still collecting donations to help blood cancer patients, so if you intended to donate but haven’t yet, just click here. And, I’m still fundraising for my second charity ride in July to support several environmental charities, so if that’s more your speed, you can donate here.