A crowd-funding campaign for the men’s rowing team at Warwick University for its latest calendar to raise funds to fight homophobia through sports has taken off spectacularly, exceeding its target of £5,000.

At the time of publication, the campaign has raised £13,625 from 139 donors and remains open for another 12 days.

Donors are rewarded with benefits ranging from uncut video footage to your own photo-shoot with the Naked Rowers for those that pledge £500 or more.

The team says:-

Our specific aim this year is to raise money for a new sports-based campaign to combat bullying and raise awareness in schools about prejudice and particularly homophobia.

We have been humbled by the response from around the world to our campaign last year to raise funds for the Ben Cohen Foundation, combating bullying and homophobia in sport. We decided that we wanted to do more, firstly to say thank you to the gay community who have given us so much support over the last four years, but also to honour the many people who have shared stories with us of the difficulties they faced in coming to terms with their sexuality against a backdrop of bullying and hate.

It has meant a lot to us to read these stories and messages of support, so this year we have decided to get involved on the frontline ourselves. We are now working with leaders in the diversity education field to create an outreach programme where we will tour schools to promote both sports and inclusion. We want school children of all ages to understand that sport should be a means to realising your potential, not just as an athlete but as a human being, with no exceptions.

We will fund our outreach programme entirely from our calendar and film sales, and we will do everything we can to make this work. If you can help us to cover our production costs, we can promise to more than return the favour with goodies and special offers just for you. This will include an opportunity to come and join us for a naked photo-shoot (you can keep you clothes on but we won’t!) and an exclusive film of the shoot with more nudity than we have ever allowed before!

And of course you’ll get more than just fun times and free gifts. Your investment will enable us to make a difference – to young people interested in sport and to young people affected by bullying of any kind.