Do you sponsor people for charity?

If the charity knew this they’d (rightly) be pretty disappointed in her.

But how can it be claimed that spending £22k (which could have been used for charitable purposes) to raise £3k is in anyway cost effective and good practice. I perhaps should have pointed out that the £3k.was the total amount raised all year. So they raised a total of £25k and the costs of the events to do so was £22k...if that was a business you'd have to question their set up

As a further aside there appear to be no social media and the Web site is a year out of date, but they are still fund raising

My general rule is "adults no, kids yes." That's flexible. If an adult is doing something especially unusual/grand, or it touches a nerve with me personally, then I will make an exception. Most recently was back in May when my mum had just been released from hospital after a very sudden and quite serious health scare, I was driving her home from a nurse appointment and we saw a bloke walking down the street wearing a decorated bath tub. I think he was raising money for a kids mental health charity. He appeared in the local news and I chucked him a tenner, mostly to thank the universe for my mums return to health.
But someone doing yet another 5K run for breast cancer? Nope.

When it comes to kids, I'll give my cousins kid a tenner to do something charitable in the local area, but your 18yo who wants to go help "build homes in Africa"? Fuck off.

I’ve sponsored friends and families kids etc, it’s only a couple of ££ and they appreciate it. But I don’t usually sponsor adults, as previously said those that are doing activities they want can pay for themselves (and extra for the charity). As for the ones that run/walk round in circles seems pretty pointless, if you seriously want to help another group/charity then do something with community meaning. Why not organise sponsored group litter picking, gardening, decorating, visiting, graffiti cleaning, food kitchen etc……

Potentially both, TY78910 - but then I've experienced both, the second one much more frequently

As I mentioned, charity has become an industry, and while of course I appreciate that large scale operations require most input, it also brings unwelcome aspects wich to my mind are better avoided

the donations are all online & once the charity has your details you can be harassed for years!

That's why the suggested donations will often be something odd like £8 a mont, @MermaidMummy06

As an acquaintance involved in this explained, they'll very quickly call asking that donors raise it to £15, and if that's resisted ask for "just £10" on the assumption thhe giver will then feel they've "got a bargain"

It's the same age old sales technique of first offering someting likely to be refused, on the basis that few like saying no twice, and for watever reason it works

Henning Wehn has a good point of view on Room 101 with Paul Merton on BBC. His take is why should he give money to someone who is doing something they enjoy. I get asked a lot less now I am retired but when I was working I didn't often sponsor anyone very often.

There's 2 very different things here.

Firstly, the £25k was raised because of the 'jolly' and they made a £3k surplus which is great. Without the 'jolly', they wouldn't have raised the money and wouldn't have raised awareness. Awareness is almost as important as the money. You seem to be dismissing the importance of awareness and focusing solely on money.

Secondly, you're suggesting the charity you are referring to is not legitimate. That's an entirely different thread and not relevant to this. Of course you wouldn't knowingly give money to a fraudulent charity!

That would be illegal! That's a whole different thing.

Think about it. Every single product in the world has a cost before they make a profit. Would you tell Cartier not to make rings because diamonds cost too much?

The 'jollies' are perfectly legitimate and very productive ways of fundraising. When you sponsor someone to climb Kilimanjaro, you know what you're sponsoring. That's a world away from shaking a tin then keeping the money for yourself. And once again, you're completely dismissing the importance of awareness and just focusing on money.

You still don't get it. If they just kept the money they were given. That's £25k. Instead they spent it on jollies...and ended up with £3k

That's like saying I won a holiday to Disney land all expenses paid apart from from booze. So I spent the fortnight in the pub.

Yes, this. Whenever they ask for 'Just £3 a month' or similar low amount, all they're doing is playing the long game and lining you up to ask for much more a bit further down the line.

So easy to reel you in by insisting that they can do lots with £3 a month... then, once you're established as a supporter, they can try to shame you for giving so little and suggesting that you could surely up it significantly!

But Cartier are offering an exclusive product at a price. If you want to buy it (and you have the money), you can; if you don't want to buy it, they aren't going to start guilt-tripping you for not doing so, or showing you pictures of sick children or emaciated donkeys in order to coerce you.

Even if Cartier only made 1% profit after all their costs, it would still make no differently to you - as you're choosing to pay the very high price solely because you want to own the fancy ring or watch. Absolutely nobody 'donates' money to Cartier in order to help support their business.

If somebody does a trek of Nepal or runs a marathon, it doesn't actually help you in any way - so it's nothing like a commercial transaction. There's no actual benefit to you in giving, other than to avoid awkwardness or shame, or being accused of being tight or selfish.

No. You don't get it. They wouldn't have the £25k in the first place.

And awareness!!!! Read a marketing book, you clearly don't understand the value of awareness.

OK so maybe that was a poor example as you've entirely missed my point. My mistake.

As for your last paragraph, you don't give to a charity to help you. You give to help the cause. Not everything is about you.

Awareness of what...five go for a cycling jolly.

The £25k has gone through their accounts so yes they did have £25k...but now they have £3k

Ok marketing...one of us has run a national TV, press, radio, bill board, mailing, point of sale campaign...and it ain't you...

I do if I like them and the cause they are raising money for.

Awareness of the fucking charity! And the money only went through their books because of the 'jolly'. Wow. I give up before I get banned for calling people stupid, (again!).

But if people paid for themselves why would it go through the charity...oh they didn't

You can call me stupid, my mates call me much worse and its good to debate a point with someone intelligent (probably more than me but I don't see why the money went through the charity)

I think you've missed my point as well: my last paragraph was to contrast the motivations and purposes of buying a product that you want to buy and the seller wants to sell, so a transaction from which you both benefit; and those of giving altruistically to a charity or a good cause, where it's mainly one-sided (except for the nice feeling of having given).

Even when giving to charity, the idea should be that YOU feel led to give and support a cause that is dear to YOUR heart. It's absolutely not in the same spirit when somebody tries to persuade you to give to THEIR cause of choice - especially when they've only chosen a particular charity because it enables them to do their chosen event - thus making you less able to support your own chosen charity as fully.

This is another (of the very many) issue that I have with chuggers. Charitable giving should be about carefully choosing which causes you most want to support from your limited personal funds, in the knowledge that you can never do any more than lightly scratch the surface of what 'charity' needs; choices in personal charitable giving should never come from pressure or coercion from whomever happens to shout the most loudly or harass you the most.