To think this is just getting someone else to pay for your holiday?

I think it depends on the cahrity.

I do a lot of Habitat for Humantiy-- where I take trips and work on a team to build houses. We do the actual labor. And we pay for the trip, which has of course a donation for the costs of supplies (cement, tools, machines, wood, wires, etc), and for the local HFH office that supplies the labor of project planning and supplies the local required help (ie certified electrician), as well as our boarding and food.

I would be ok asking for donations for that part (supplies, project planning, local required help), yet not for my food/hotel/travel. Albeit food and hotel if it is provided for is ok, as we provide the labor.

However going away 3 weeks to do rowing to raise money, where you are not actually doing the work (ie build a house, teach kids, etc) that is not cool IMO. That is getting a rowing holiday for free.

Excellent idea. It would be worth doubling the donation just to see their reaction.

My DP did a week long ultra marathon in the states for charity. He paid the entry fee (nearly £5,000) and flights and all associated costs.
He went on to raise a significant amount of money for Help for Heroes, he didn't use any of it to pay for the trip.
Maybe I'm naive but it never occurred to me that people would use charity donations to cover their costs.

Let them have their Gaaarp yaahhh!

No, I really agree OP.
My brother did this (years ago) and admitted when home that it had been a boozy, fun experience for the 'do- gooder' students, with lots of generosity from locals with meals etc and not too much work. All fundraised.
It does seem to be getting worse now with social media etc.

Still a thing in my town too, my sons done it twice for different sports clubs in the last year at Tesco

I think it depends on the scenario. My friend did one of these treks abroad for a cancer charity after having breast cancer. She was only in her 20s and the charity helped massively with the support they gave her. The trek was a huge achievement for her after what she went through and she did raise a lot (although obviously some of it paid for her to go). I didn’t begrudge sponsoring her because of all she’d been through. I think it’s different if you have no real connection to the charity though and just fancy a jolly under the guise of being amazing for raising money.

I recently did a sponsored sky dive but Paid for myself to skydive which was about £150 and all the money I raised went to the charity. I didn’t feel happy with people paying for me to do the sky dive.

It's part of the conditions for signing up for the Guides trips we were offered that the girls fundraise for some of the cost of going. We would have paid if it was an option.

I'm pretty sure the charity places are £300-400 as opposed to iirc about £80 for a ballot, club, or gfa place.
The charities often use hotels near the finish as a Base for runners and might provide a free massage or goody bag so I guess that is factored in to the target to be raised too.

Why don't you just pay for her then?

You know the charities wouldn't get involved in such schemes if it didn't raise money for them right?

I’ve never had an adult ask me to cough up for one of these - used to get requests for ‘gap year’ jollies, though - going to e.g. ‘build a school’ in Africa - 18 year olds with zero skills! As if the ‘charity’ couldn’t get competent locals to do it for a fraction of the cost!

The companies that organise these jollies must be laughing all the way to the bank.

A niece did go on one such, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but her dad has very deep pockets and paid for it all - nobody else was expected to shell out.

https://www.tcslondonmarathon.com/more/about-lme
Well apparently 'maximising revenue' is one of their aims, along with 'inspiring' people to take up sport. I find that somewhat contradictory.

Also 'to show that humanity can be united ' 🤢🤢🤢

What hypocrites.

Reducing the proportion of ballot places increases barriers to entry - and those who are least able to raise money will be most affected. Most people raise money from their social circle - friends, family, work not randoms. They can also probably just pay the 2K themselves if they're that desperate to run it.

Those who are less financially well off are also less likely to be surrounded by people with spare cash, and so struggle to raise the funds.

I wonder how much they charge the charities? Hmm
Or maybe it's just the publicity

Just fyi the Just Giving page owner can't actually see your name if you tick the box saying "keep me anonymous". I volunteer for a small charity and we sometimes get people upset that we haven't thanked them for their donation but all we could see in the backend was "Anonymous".

On a side note, I've volunteered doing boring admin work for this charity for over 10 years and none of my friends have ever given a penny in donations. And yet if I did some big "charity" stunt everyone would be donating money and telling me what I hero I am. It's so stupid (and frustrating).

I know someone who did this twice, once to Peru and once to China. He’s a nice guy and he organised several charity nights to raise the money. It didn’t really feel like it was beneficial to the charity and he kept going on about ‘raising awareness’.
He then tried for a 3rd time and basically got nothing. He realised early on it was a no go and closed it. I wonder how much it ended up costing him though.

Me and my kids could do with a holiday. What charity should we start a fund for 😂😂😂

Virtue signalling at its finest.

"Pay for me to do something I would absolutely love to do, but would never fork out for myself, but it's for charidee too, so aren't I wonderful"

Really interesting reading this thread.

I would love to run the London Marathon, I enter the ballot every year but never get in, the ballot has a very small number of the total places allocated to it, as the vast majority are given to charities so the majority of runners effectively jump the ballot by 'buying ' a place with a charity.

It seems to be happening more and more. There is obviously more profit in it for race organisers, but I can't see how.

The Endure24 race over the last couple of years has started pushing this too....deliberately reducing the number of non charity places in favour of charity places....

I've just paid for my 2025 entry it was £130, if I wanted a charity place , it would have only cost me £20 as long as i promised to raise £350 for charity....so in effect my friends would be paying most of my race entry fee but wouldn't be aware of this. I think it's completely immoral.

Raising awareness of a valid charity, but not actually fundraising. Piss take.

Is a British teenager with zero experience really helping to build a school in Africa? Really?? When there are undoubtedly qualified local tradesmen who would appreciate the work and pay?

They're not likely to be "building a school in Africa" or whatever, @IamaRevenant; they're not even likely to be "helping" if, like a neighbour's daughter, they spent most of the time moaning that they can't get a signal on their phones
At best they'll move a few items around, and all in the time a local could have done much more and, as you say, appreciated the work of which they have much more understanding

Still, the social media beast has to be fed, and pics of someone actually on the spot presumably earn more kudos among the unthinking

Yep, my mate is taking her 13yo to somewhere in Africa to "build a school" and is asking us all to sponsor them both.

I'm currently avoiding her as I can't bear these poverty porn type holidays and I'm not giving them a penny.

I also found out on here recently that if you donate anonymously to a just giving type page, the page owner can see your names anyway so I can't fib about an anon donation.... And I also can't really tell her what I really think....

YANBU.
Although my work (large company) does this with them funding the cost of the trip. All funds raised are for charity

I did one of these types of trips many years ago. The charity was a small organisation with a very clear cause and the challenge aspect was something that was genuinely very challenging for me. I paid the minimum fundraising target, which included the cost of the trip and fundraised over and above that to the benefit of the charity. I was in a group of three and between us raised over £20k not including the cost of the trip - we also raised the profile of the charity through our fundraising activities.

I think if someone is covering their own costs and fundraiser money goes to the charity it’s fine. Different if someone is fundraising the bare minimum in exchange for a jolly.

Yes,. I always look at the CEO's wage before deciding whether to support a charity. Over 100k is a no from me.

Average wage for charity bosses is £170K a year. Why anyone parts with a penny to any of these muggers i don't know. Stick to local charities at least you can see your hard earned cash in use.

I haven't seen it in my area since the advent of Covid. It stopped and never came back.