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Entrepreneur Ben Elliot explains why he'll take 400-mile cycle challenge to help feed hungry children

Wheels on fire: Ben Elliot will cycle 400 miles for the Felix Project charity: Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd
Wheels on fire: Ben Elliot will cycle 400 miles for the Felix Project charity: Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd

Ben Elliot, co-founder of global concierge and lifestyle management firm Quintessentially, insists that he doesn’t have many skills: “But what I can always do is sort things. I can gather people together, and get things done.”

Though he may not consider it a skill, over the past decade Elliot has elevated “getting things done” to an art form. The ultimate fixer for the super-wealthy, his company is rumoured to have flown teabags across the Atlantic for Madonna, organised dinner on an iceberg, and closed Sydney Harbour Bridge for a marriage proposal.

It’s a job which requires resourcefulness, connections and a belief that anything is possible — traits which also come in useful when it comes to raising money for charity. Quintessentially Foundation, the grant-giving arm of Elliot’s business, has raised more than £10 million in 10 years.

And just as Quintessentially is known for meeting the needs of clients for whom money is no object, the foundation has become synonymous with above-and-beyond fundraising spectaculars.

We meet to talk about the latest: a 400-mile cycle from Austria to Slovenia in aid of The Felix Project.

“That sense of achievement as you cross the line is what it’s all about. Accomplishing something really challenging while raising money is a feeling like no other.”

Despite his impeccably cut blue suit and coiffed hair, the debonair 42-year-old isn’t afraid to get involved himself. On the first cycling fundraiser from London to Paris he crashed and broke his shoulder but still finished the ride.

“I can’t expect people to give up their precious time or money if I’m not putting my balls on the line,” says the Old Etonian, whose sentences often come peppered with old-school expletives. “I’m sure people are irritated by me, but I would never ask anybody to do anything that I was not prepared to do myself. I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

Elliot shares his adventurous spirit with his late uncle Mark Shand, founder of the Asian elephant charity Elephant Family. “My uncle was a hero to me. He refused to accept barriers, smashed through conventions and said: ‘Screw that, we need to get things done’.”

Charismatic playboy Shand died four years ago following an accident in New York aged 62. Three years ago Elliot launched the foundation’s biennial 300-mile rickshaw race across India to meet Tara, the elephant protagonist of Shand’s book, Travels on My Elephant. The first race raised £2.2 million and participants included Yasmin and Amber Le Bon, Tom Parker Bowles and Ruth Ganesh.

In a post-recession world you need to be imaginative with your fundraising, says Elliot. “Before the financial meltdown we would do huge gala dinners and raise huge amounts from the network we had. But the relationship was purely transactional: we would collect money and give it to the charity.”

He soon learned that the bigger and better the experience, the easier it is to get people to part with their cash. “Fundraising works best if people can have fun while helping a good cause. If you are brave in thinking of huge ideas to galvanise people, then you can raise lots more money.”

It also helps to have lots of rich friends. A godfather to Zac Goldsmith’s children and nephew of Prince Charles, Elliot’s contact book is the envy of any charity fundraiser. He cites Charles as one of his role models in starting the foundation, calling him “the greatest philanthropist in this country. He is one of the most privileged people but he uses his privilege in an exceptional way to help people, particularly with The Prince’s Trust.”

I ask his friend and Felix Project founder Justin Byam Shaw what he thinks of this. “Though he may not realise it, Ben is sort of describing himself here and certainly the person he aspires to be. I have yet to meet anyone else with the same passionate, urgent belief that privilege brings great social responsibility with it. I think he will come to be recognised as one of the great modern philanthropists, a man who can enthuse and mobilise others to follow his lead.”

Elliot’s social conscience has been with him from an early age — he recalls leading a group of classmates on a march with Sir Ian McKellen in Hyde Park as a teenager during the Aids epidemic. “As my life has gone on the playground has just got a bit larger.”

Does he think wealthy Londoners need to give more? “I do. There is now a tension in London. Last summer the terrible tragedy of Grenfell Tower made a lot of very, very rich people stop and think about the acute social problems we have in this city. There has been a tonal shift, and people’s eyes have been opened to what responsibilities they have, beyond just paying taxes and living here.”

The foundation works in partnership with small charities to “turbo charge them” both financially and through Quintessentially’s networks. It has helped schoolchildren in Enfield and Croydon through Place2Be, funded a new cancer centre in London through Maggie’s and, most recently, raised over £300,000 for food waste and food poverty charity The Felix Project.

How to get involved

Would you like to join the four-day 400-mile bike ride from Innsbruck, Austria, to Ljubljana, Slovenia?

To enter, email katie@thefelixproject.org with the following details:

1. Your name and age

2. Have you ever done a long-distance bike ride before?

3. Why you would like to do the bike ride, in 150 words or fewer.

4. What you are hoping to get from taking part, in 150 words or fewer.

5. How you would raise up to £5,000 (or up to £3,000 for younger riders).

For more information, visit: quintessentiallyfoundation.org/
event/bike-ride

This June all of the funds raised in the foundation’s annual bike ride will go to Felix. Riders will cycle more than 400 miles in four days, from Innsbruck in Austria to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

“There are 70,000 children in this city, this capital of commerce, who go to school without having breakfast, and The Felix Project is trying to change that. I have two sons, and I know quite how disruptive that would be for them, for their families, their classrooms, and their teachers.”

Elliot wants his two sons — Arthur, five, and Ike, three — to grow up in a society where charity is more integrated in London life. “Recently my three-year-old and I walked past a homeless person. The man was asleep and we put some money in his cup. My son couldn’t understand what the man was doing sleeping on the street — that’s not a society we should be proud of.”

Elliot and his wife Mary-Clare, daughter of musician Steve Winwood, divide their time between west London and Gloucestershire. “You’d have to ask Mary-Clare what she thinks of it all,” he says. “We’ve been together nearly 10 years and she would say that I am unbelievably annoying sometimes, but hopefully she’s proud of some of the stuff I’ve achieved”

As for the latest addition to his family, Meghan Markle, he thinks she is “absolutely marvellous”. But he isn’t too worried about his wedding invite. “With respect, it’s not what I wake up thinking about, but she does seem like a brilliant force for good.”