After doing my 100 mile bike ride to raise money for autism research I’ve decided to step things up a gear (ha) and go further in a bid to raise more.

Next I will be riding the 285 miles from Boston to New York over 3 days, with the goal of raising money for Housing Works, who work with those struggling with HIV/AIDS and homelessness. This work is being done with the hope of one day putting AIDS behind us.

While this ride could no doubt be done in fewer adds that “oh balls, I have to get up and do this again” factor, which always makes these multi-day events that much more grueling. After the 100-mile bike ride all I did was drink a keg of beer in the West Hamptons. This time I’ll have to get on my bike for another two days, then be back at work the day after.

Last time I raised $700, so this time raising $7,000 seems like a reasonable move.

Never having raised this much (or even attempted to) I asked the internet for advice on how I should approach it. Jessica D’Amico suggested I go for a Kickstarter-style approach, and while it was an excellent idea I had trouble thinking of what I could offer anyone in return for money (stop it).

I then remembered I am part of the PHP community, which is full of fucking excellent people, who would probably help me out if I asked them nicely - and they really did. Some gave me cash, some gave me advice and many - unexpectedly - set me up with some discount codes for their various products and services.

Here is a list of rewards that I’ll be handing out in return for various donation levels.

$1 - That warm fuzzy feeling of being a good person. $5 - A thank you tweet praising your or your company. $10 - Any one of the following:

$50 - Any one of the following:

One free NomadPHP talk

$100 off HelpSpot

€20 (thats a Euro symbol folks) off FortRabbit

3 months free Snappy

$200 - The same reward as $50 and an hour of Skype consultation covering PHP, Laravel, Chef, Git, deployment tactics, whatever for you, or a group of your choosing. $500 - The same reward as $50 and be a special guest on an episode of the “PHP Town Hall” podcast. $1337 - PHP Town Hall, company logo on my bike jersey and a personal weekend visit to train you (or a group of less than 5) for a day on any of the subjects I have any authority on.

The one caveat to that last deal, is that if travel from New York is more than $350 I’ll have to ask you to throw in towards a plane ticket. No worries about accommodation, I like staying in hostels.

Two other important things to remember:

These donations are tax deductible, so it’s like free money or something.

If you are donating personally and your employer has a matching gift program it will double the donation (but that doesn’t double the reward, just saying).

So please, help me out here and donate. If you want one of the rewards then send an email to [email protected] letting me know the name the donation is under and which reward you want. I’ll then send you a coupon code, or do whatever else the reward states.

I’ve had some huge donations already from the listeners of NomadPHP and PeersConf, so a massive thank you to them. Let’s see how much money we can raise for this excellent cause. There is a timescale on this, the money has to be in by August 30th but waiting leads to missed donations. If you wait until next week or next month you will almost certainly forget, so please do it ASAP to avoid missing out on your chance to not only help an excellent cause but to get some cool stuff in return.