What makes our charity challenges and charity event management SO different?

Safety and excellent standards in event management are of paramount importance to us.

We are an expedition company not a charity holiday company - this is essential to what makes Across the Divide so different, we treat all our events and challenges as mini expeditions, not charity holidays, with all the planning, equipment and staff in place to take care of all of the worst-case scenarios that we can think of.

All Across the Divide's charity challenges, charity walking events, adventure races are organised as mini-expeditions, with the full safety and personnel back-up that this entails, regardless of whether it is operating in an overseas location or in the UK. All challenges and projects are fully supported by:

• The highest levels of experienced UK staff to client ratio in the charity challenge market;

• A great staff team, chosen for their interpersonal skills, as well as their expedition experience and qualifications;

• At least one qualified UK doctor, with charity expedition experience, on every challenge;

• The latest safety, communication and medical equipment;

• Long term support of environmental partners;

• 24-hour office support whilst on charity challenge.

We work as a family unit - we ran our first ever expedition to Morocco eight years ago and we are still using the same Morrocan team that we did all those years ago because they have grown, along with us, to be one of the most skilled, courteous and friendly teams in the country. The same applies to our own staff, understandably given the nature of our work, we have a very low staff turnover and it is likely that the European guides that will accompany you will have travelled with us all over the world and are well known for their enthusiasm and reassuring presence.

We have a 'we can achieve' team mentality- we will provide whatever you need, when you need it. Our reputation is the safest, most thorough supplier of charity treks and challenges and we mean to keep it.

Getting the best for our clients: You will be surprised at how different our charity challenges are compared to others, we go to different places and when we go to same place we go by a different trail. Take our Peru trek as example, there are a number of charity challenges to Machu Picchu but how many of them go by a trail opened up specifically for Across the Divide, visiting little known villages, ancient Inca ruins rediscovered by our own staff and using a ISO 14001 certificated company to provide our local backup? We could go on...... but you get the point I'm sure.

Safety: Our charity challenges are well-known for the thoroughness of the planning and safety, all of our trips will have been pre-recced by a planning team long before a challenge takes place to ensure that we know the local teams, geography and the safety backup options. All our charity expeditions are escorted by trained Across the Divide staff and a charity challenge medical team, as well as a well-prepared local team, indeed our staffing ratios are the highest of any provider for this type of trip.

Financial: Across the Divide charges the charity a fixed-fee so the more participants raise the more the charity benefits. One of the benefits of this sort of charity travel is that we are able to achieve far greater economies of scale and pass these on to our customer. We have very low overheads and we do not produce glossy brochures or have expensive city offices - the vast majority of the fee paid to us goes into providing safety on the ground, and employing the best local teams we can find. We are also ATOL bonded.