that if you want to go somewhere exotic for charity you should pay for it yourself?

[Madmum24]

A Family member is doing a very long trek in the Far East for charity; brilliant, a commendable act, I would sponsor generously. However, she has announced that in order to do the trek she must first raise £3500 to cover travel expenses, accommodation and fees etc. She is hosting lots of pub quizzes/jumble sales/raffles etc in the name of her charity, which I feel is a bit dishonest, as it is going towards her fees, not the charity IYKWIM.

After she raises the fees she will then expect sponsorship. AIBU to feel that not only is this slightly deceptive, but that if she really wants to help the charity she will pay for it herself and use all of the fundraising money for the charity directly?

I reckon that the only reason these exotic 'challenges' raise (and then squander) lots of money compared with other methods is just that the people trying to raise the money are motivated to be more obnoxious pushy determined to raise the money. Not that the donors inherently prefer to give to this sort of thing.

Oh, and the other thing - it makes no practical difference whether the travel costs are raised directly by the 'sponsorship' or provided by the charity. In the latter case it's money that the charity isn't spending on its cause.

I think this has been a unanimous YANBU not seen one of those for ages,

got a local free paper in the door last year local girl wants to go picture of a girl just left school at the summer wants to go to africa to build huts all she needs is sponsorship , sigh

TBH, I still don't fully get the sponsored treks, rides, challenges, whatever.

Why can't people just go to other people, tell them about the charity and raise the money anyway?
Why can't they spend the time they would be trekking or riding, for example, with the charity?
The same goes for fund raising dinners and parties, although I can understand that it may well save time and reach out narcissistic givers.

I'm just as likely (probably more, actually) to give to a friend who asks me to give to any given charity than to sponsor a money raising activity.

I'm probably wrong and charities do raise more money that way, or people are more likely to make the effort to raise that money.
It just feels odd.

Everyone in the office was when I refused to sponsor someone from another office who was doing one of these holidays by saying 'sorry, I haven't had a holiday for five years, I'm not paying towards somebody elses'.

Sponsored swims, silences or whatever are great - if done by children. Apart from that, I much prefer to just give to a cause on its merits - and with regard to how much it spends on admin, executives' salaries etc - and set up standing orders.

I can see why people go to charity nights Im not talking about the big money spinner ones but a disco or something it does get the charity good money all at once not all charities are the ones people will set up Direct debit for, somebody wanted to trek to see the gorrillas and raise money for a facebookpage i like I want to go and see the gorrillas Im not paying for somebody else to go

For me it's a percentage return thing - a coffee morning with overheads (charged or donated) of say £50-60 needs to raise at least £100 as far as I'm concerned. The most successful I've been involved with was an organised online event where people said "let's see how much we can raise today" and the ad hoc JustGiving was over £1000 in a few hours, with no overheads except the JG %age.

I guess it depends why the sponsors are sponsoring - because they like the charity? because they like the fundraiser? because they are getting a product/service they value? because they can't get out of it? Only in the last case can major overheads be justified (because otherwise the charity would get £0) but it is morally questionable.

Horry in my families case people seem to think that paying towards the cost of the holiday trek that they are helping the charity. I seem to be the only one questioning the morality of spending £3500 to hand £1000 over to the charity.

But then again I am not the one who will get to FB/twitter every mile along the way and need to be looked after for two weeks after so perhaps I am just jealous?

I did my trek in memory of a very close member of my family. The charity spent about £1000 on my flights and accommodation but I raised £3,500 for them in sponsorship etc. I certainly wouldn't have expected family/friends to contribute to cost of flights etc.

Most of the time, you have to spend some money in order to raise money.

I didn't