to think that these "challenges" people do for charity are basically holidays?

[ohbugrit]

I know people who've done parachute jumps, abseiling, etc, but also some folk who're raising money so they can walk the Great Wall of China for charity. How does this work? Aren't they just getting us to pay for their walking holiday then also presumably getting us to sponsor them to do it? Or AIJB a miserly bag?

Snailoon your nephew is different because he was there for at least 6 months. That IMHO is long enough to actually make a difference both to the childrens life and to his own, plus as it was a gap year presumably he wasn't asking for funds to do it.
I have started running half marathons again but its for my own enjoyment and fitness so I would feel a bit of a fraud asking for donations to charity. I did however ask for sponsorship for the endometriosis society for my first half marathon. I paid the costs myself so anything I got was on top of it and my main reason for doing it was raising awareness of Endometriosis - which I have and trying to encourage people to be more open about it. I also did an online sponsorship form and did not mention it verbally once the email had been sent, so hopefully it felt like a personal choice for the sponsorers.

If something is not a challenge for you then you shouldn't be asking for money for it.

YANBU. I don't sponsor them.

I did however sponsor an old school friend who had spent some uni time (engineering degree) in Bhutan designing a new system for building wells. That was categorically NOT a holiday. She ran a 10k afterwards to raise money for the village, and does a lot of work for them still.

I have a lot of respect for her, and for people who put in actual time and effort volunteering at a grass roots level, without getting anything (ie a nice holiday, a tan and an 'unforgettable experience') out of it themselves.

Some interesting articles about orphanages and volunteers

goodintents.org/orphanages/does-funding-orphanages-create-orphans-3
goodintents.org/orphanages/hug-an-orphan-vacations-3

I would sponsor a litter pick - payment dependent on how much (by weight) gets removed.

Or clearing an eyesore,

Or gardening in an OAP housing complex, but noone seems to want to do that

It's disappointing that a lot of these charity campaigns, however well intended, are ruining the image of doing something epic for charity. Further to my previous posts (I've been thinking about this all night), I think charities should work alongside those who wish to raise money but not actually organise the event. I think a lot of those who choose to do the organised treks are perhaps intimidated by the thought of having to do all the planning. But I've had another idea.

There are many holiday companies, such as Travelsphere, who specialise in escorted trips, including the sort of adventure the charities offer. Why don't the charities work with these companies? For example, book your Great Wall of China trip with the holiday company. You get your fully organised tour with guides and as part of a group. You are then paying for the whole trip yourself. But whilst you are doing something that awesome, why not ask people to sponsor you? That way, the charity is getting 100% of the money.

Tower Most (if not all) charities subcontract the actual logistics to a travel company anyway. All they do is get the participants to fill the places they've already bought for X event. Others (like most of the ultra marathons- marathon de Sables, Gobi, Race the Planet) are totally organised by the race organisers. They tell you which flight/which hotel/ sort all the transport.

RealLife But doesn't sponsorship money still cover costs? With my idea, you'd book your trip directly through the travel company, pay for it and raise money for the charity independently.

YANBU.My DS's school run these .They cost £4000 and include about 3 days helping out of a 3 week trip and they tell all the kids how it will give them UCAS points and help with their Uni entry. Whilst the kids can have a go at raising some of the money themselves, the parents sign a contract and a DD mandate to pay.It's not every family who can commit to this (although at least 30% kids do it) so it is an enormously divisive thing.Oh and it's a state school

Andapointyinapairtree - you say your friend didnt get anything herself from her experience in Bhutan, but then you say she did it as part of a degree - so presumably she got valuable work experience, put it on her CV, maybe even got academic credit for it?

Which is not to say it necessarily was or wasn't a good thing for community she worked with in Bhutan - you can't judge that through how selfless she was though, but whether the service she provided was the best option (e.g. Compared to a local engineering firm).

Well, yes, I was thinking that - all volunteering does benefit the volunteer in giving them experience of course. But it wasn't a holiday like those trek things, she was directly helping them - actually doing those treks makes no difference to the charity, it's only the money that does IYSWIM - I think that's what bugs me about it.

BTW I am totally honest - even with my boss - about my volunteering in a charity shop. I only signed up to get retail experience! The others who did the same thing all left as soon as they got a job though. I told them they aren't getting rid of me so easily :o

Of course volunteering gives me good experience and a warm fuzzy feeling (even on the days I really can't be arsed) :)

We are going to work in an orphanage in Thailand next summer Hols.We are paying for the trip ourselves but raising money to take to buy them things such as toys and treats,we can stay in the accomodation which we will do if we can but are prepared to book into a hotel if too basic as we have a baby.
Ido think some of these trips are a bit ridiculous tbh.Dh get asked to sponser someone about twice a month at work.

Ledkr -

Do read the articles I linked to re: orphanages and voluntourism.

Ok i will. just to add this is not on a whim tho,my sister is anurse and has been supporting them for years,last year we went and bought them all paddling pools and new clothes and dressed their baddies,may dh plays footy with the disturbed boys and we also spend time with a little boy who had lukeamia and is stuck in an adult hospital with no visitors. We raise all the money at car boots and send nothing to them just buy stuff to take or buy it there,there is no doubt that they definately benefit form out families involvemet,we gain nothing from it at all apart from happiness at seeing them happy. I am a child sw and dh is a policeman wih vast experience with children especially disturbed ones.
I can never thinbk in any way what we do is wrong or exploitative. I am making an assumption the articles will be negative.

Mary your DD sounds delightful

Sorry I haven't come back to the thread until now - busy weekend. Really interesting to read everyone's experience/opinions on this, particularly as I am reviewing our fundraising strategy in January.
Basically if a charity signs up with a company for this (which doesn't cost us anything) then we have to do very little work to get quite a lot of £££ -in a small charity (personnel-wise) like mine, that is a good thing where cost/benefit is so important. We also have a team of 32 marathon places - each one of those is costing us £1200 with the runners being asked to raise £1800, so we only get £600 per place, but the amount of administration we need to do to keep our team happy, motivated etc. nearly cancels that out.
In an ideal world I would just say "Don't bother doing anything, just ask everybody you know to donate £20 to us with Gift Aid" but that isn't generally regarded as good fundraising etiquette. Ultimately as charities we have to try and come up with increasingly innovative ways of getting people engaged with our cause, and it's a really really tough environment with so many charities competing for money.
This has been a really interesting thread - FWIW I would much rather my own DSs do something off their own backs (when they're old enough - only 4 and 2 atm) than piggybacking on a charity challenge, but from a professional point of view I hope more people do them (as long as they choose to support us of course...)

whats wrong with everyone benefiting from the charity exercise- its why people bother to raise money.

I run a fundraising team too (hello sleepychunky) and we don't do this sort of event. I had a supporter who signed up for one that wanted us the charity to pay a deposit upfront!

It is tricky to know where to place resources to generate best results. We spend 6% of income on fundraising, which is punily low compared to some other charities. But that's because we don't do that much face-to-face stuff, which is more expensive than grant applications - although that's where the competition is going to start to bite.

I think the people who do this sort of challenge thing are not likely to be raising or donating money otherwise so it is the only way to get their philanthropic mojo going.