AIBU to not "get" charity sponsoring for marathons, bike rides, walking Great Wall of China or whatever?

[shirleybasseyslovechild]

friend decides to run marathon " in aid of cancer" asks all friends on social media to donate .

???

I don't get this at all. ( I nearly always donate though)
run a marathon if you like.
give money to cancer research if you like. I'll do the same.

but why link the two ?

I work for a charity, give money to charities and have a homeless person in my home for another charity. I HATE sponsorship stuff. Kids; fine. Adults; not fine.

lady my post looks like a reply ot yours but it was just a bitchy looking x-post.

"This type of fundraising is just another method of raising money. They need all the help they can get."

Honestly that's debatable. Charities are run like businesses, they will seek to get more income ever year. That doesn't mean they NEED the money, but if they can get it, why not?

Some charities get too much money, most not enough

Both my dh and myself have run marathons, and neither of us did it for a charity. We did it for our own personal enjoyment. If our friends and family want to donate money it would take them 30 seconds on the Internet, they don't need us guilt tripping them into it.

We do give money to charity, and DH did decide to fundraise for a charity that helped us as a family last year. However, he did it by donating his own time and money to make items to sell (that people would have bought anyway). He didn't ask other people to do so.

I can see that event fundraising does generate a lot of money for charity, so I can't be totally against it. But it's not something I personally would do.

I did the Inca Trail for charity. I certainly wouldn't call it a "jolly" it was gruelling but that's beside the point. I did it as a one off for Marie Curie as it was something my husband and I had talked about doing then he died aged 50 of cancer and the chance came up. I gave enough money myself to cover my costs so all the £6700 that I raised went to charity. I did it as a very personal thing as marie curie saved me when my husband was so ill.

I think a lot of people do these trips as a one off and certainly as we reached the sungate at the end of the trail many of us were in tears and privately thinking about our loved ones.

The people who gave to me knew my husband and I well. I also did a lot of fund raising events like lunches and afternoon teas which brought in money and some people hired a cinema and put on a great evening with donations of drinks and nibbles from big companies so people enjoyed themselves raising the money. There were also people who just donated.

It was an important point for me in my grieving process. People ask if I would do it again but I wouldnt. I cannot ask people to give like that again. I want to do the Great Wall of China but I will do that myself as a proper holiday. I don't call sleeping in a tent and suffering from altitude sickness a holiday. Actually doing the trek made me realise that I was tough enough to go on alone.

So that's a perspective from someone who has done it. So no you're not BU. But charities get a lot of money from these treks that they wouldn't get otherwise. If they didn't they wouldn't run them

I think what I resent is that all the people actually doing charity work. That is running charity shops, soup kitchens, helplines, visiting isolated older people, running foodbanks, carers etc etc are taken for granted, while people who are essentially doing something for themselves while promoting a cause - are celebrated. If you want to run 27 miles then run 27 miles... I don't have a problem with raising money through fun runs etc. But I do think the balance should be to think about what contributions you can make to helping make the world a better place not just run and you are done.

Obviously do both if you want

I do voluntary work for a charity at the moment and while donations of funds are great and essential we also need people to do the work.

I don't mind sponsoring people as a one off. A friend did a parachute jump, despite a huge fear of heights, for a cot death charity after losing her baby. That I didn't mind. It was a gutsy thing for her to do imo. I won't sponsor DH's relative to do his umpteenth marathon/half marathon/whatever length of run because it's just about what will get him the place most of the time. The first few times were charities that meant something to him, now it's just about getting involved in the running.

hardfaced cow icon I've also stopped going to local events for one particular charity because it's just relentless. A local lad was badly injured a couple of years ago, once he got better his family did a few events to raise money for a charity that helped him - fair enough. However it's now 3 years down the line and I think there's been at least 20 events. There's something every other month at least and I think they seem to be oblivious to the fact that they're starting to grate on people because it seems no matter how many things you do/go to they always, always want more.

I cut off part of my post. The friend who did the parachute jump volunteers with the charity so gives time and effort as well as one big thing.

I think there's just too much of it. If you only met one person, doing something really difficult it would be fine, but nowadays there are loads of them doing fairly easy things.

When it comes to charity I think it is good if the donor gets some kind of reward, for example if you donate items to a charity shop it helps you declutter and the person who buys the items gets a bargain. Volunteers in the shops normally enjoy their work too.

I don't mind sponsoring runs/marathons/cycles etc as it does require a hell of a lot of effort.

I do object to the Parachute Jump/Great Wall of China/Trek across the Sahara stuff though, because, as I understand it, there is always a minimum sponsorship amount (which effectively pays for the plane/hostel/travel etc) and it's the money raised on top of that that actually goes to the charity. (Happy to corrected if I am wrong btw).

I just think that if you really want to walk the Great Wall of China, just do it yourself.

If our friends and family want to donate money it would take them 30 seconds on the Internet, they don't need us guilt tripping them into it.

Actually I think this is the point. Lots of people do need a trigger to make them donate to charity. They wouldn't necessarily decide to donate to a given charity without that little push. Not because they don't agree with charitable giving but just because we're all busy and sometimes we forget or don't think about these things.

My DH is running a marathon later this year for Alzheimer's Research. It's personal to him and he wants to help in a small way to raise money for research. All of our friends could donate without him running it but it's unlikely they would. If they are happy to give a pound or two that's great, if they don't want to that's fine too.

Musical, I posted this before seeing your post. You sound very thoughtful and brave and I admire what you did, esp if you covered all the costs yourself. I was thinking more about the types I've met through work who been very "Ooh! I've always wanted to do this! Look! They pay for it!" When actually it's potentially preventing more money going to the charity and costing them nothing.

I do t mind sponsoring things like marathons, etc, but I do object to the sponsored bike ride in Peru type stuff.

If you want to do a sponsored bike ride, fab, but why do it in Peru? To me that's a once in a life time holiday type thing, you don't get your mates to pay for it in the guise of charity.

We have a sponsored walk here every year, it's organised by the local charity in question and it's very well supported. We take part most years and I really don't mind sponsoring people for stuff like that

Great wall of china = fancy holiday dressed up as charity thing.

Marathon/special thing done locally for charity = special effort made to inspire more donations that would ordinarily be forthcoming. I think people making arsey comments are jealous TBH and trying to justify the jealousy by casting it as attention seeking.

I shaved my head for charity and raised nearly 2k. Sorry if any of you were the offened that I asked

A friend was running a 10k for charity. But she hadn't bothered to do much training so was "probably going to just walk it"! FFS put a bit of effort in if you are going to get people to sponsor you - it's supposed to be a challenge.

crystalcove - the only voice of reason on this entire thread!!
What is wrong with you people? What a strange thing to be so cynical about!
Smacks of - I have been asked to give to charities and I can't be arsed/don't want to so now I feel awful!
Or am I totally missing something here?
these are the worst comments I have read so far on MN, what a bunch of lovely people you all are

Always considered the sponsor stuff as a form of Penance -the more the doer suffers ,the more you are expected to donate .
I have suggested,in other threads,that a lot of charity staff would be better deployed offering various services to anyone,it would raise more cash than staffing a shop.
Can an Oxfam taxi ,cleaning,building Firm be far off,charities have already started to open cafe's with free staff and donated food.

Some hospital charities don't accept sponsored parachute jumps as they end up costing the NHS more money than they raise in the cost of repairing damaged ankles and backs !

I don't get sponsorship either - but I did a sponsored sleep out last year for a local homelessness charity that I support. I felt like it gave me permission to ask people to donate, and I raised about twice as much as I normally give them in a year. Obviously none of the people who donated benefitted at all from my mild discomfort, but it seems to be an acceptable trade off.

In general I prefer the "pay a bit extra for a piece of cake" type of fundraising.

This is an interesting thread and is making me reconsider my views on this.

Last year my DS spent time in the local children's hospital. It was a very stressful time. I am a single parent with no support from DS dad (who did not even visit him in hospital).

I was so grateful that DS was ok it made me realise how lucky we were to game this amazing hospital in our community. I decided I wanted to do something to raise funds for them. I decided to run the marathon, something I had always thought of and wanted to do but was too scared and didn't see how I could ever manage time for training. Doing it to raise funds for the hospital made me committed to just go ahead and do it.

It was really hard but I am proud that I did it, together DS and I raised over £1200, I definitely could not make that as a donation so I really appreciated people sponsoring me and thanked everyone personally. Raising money kept me going, I am not sure if I could have done it if I was not raising money as I was in a lot of pain during training and the run.

The comments here are interesting as I would always sponsor a friend dong an event to support my friend, the charity would benefit from my supporting my friend (if it was a charity I disagreed with hugely not sure if I would sponsor though) and I felt a bit disappointed that some people I consider to be close Friends did not sponsor me, to support my efforts and to support he hospital which they all use but it makes more sense now reading posts here.

I dread to think how much I spent to raise the money at least a couple of hundred pounds but it was worth it to raise the money and for myself to show I could do it!

I completely agree on the "sponsor me to have a trip of a lifetime" thing.

I also agree with the poster upthread who said that many people will donate if provided with a trigger. Around here, at least, such events are community oriented events that bring people together. They raise money that goes straight to the charity while raising awareness. People can donate as much or as little as they want.

I think the OP is a little churlish and sneering. Why not link an activity with a charity? Do you think your donation is worth more if you throw coins into a box by the till in the supermarket? Why not link it with sacrifice and effort? It's not compulsory for you to cheerlead or even donate.

FWIW, I used to volunteer a lot of my time and effort for charities. I have too many demands on my time now to commit to anything regular, but I managed, along with two friends, to raise £6000+ for a charity in a single sponsorship event recently. It allowed me to give something back to my community and was, AFAIK, a positive experience for everyone who contributed.

Game = have, please excuse typos

Errr, hoping the OP isn't meaning to be obtuse or goady. You must realise that people have very personal reasons for creating a challenge for themselves. Why not link the two? It raises far more awareness by doing so.

I ran the Miami marathon after my brother died to raise money for the Royal Marsden and my local cancer charity here where I live (overseas) - I raised $11,000.00 and split the donations equally between the two. I paid for my own race entrance, hotel and flights. I also donated $500 of my own money.

I wasn't a natural runner before I started training and it took a fuck load of supremely early morning runs (3.30am) to get in the miles before the sun came up. I did this whilst working full time, and with a baby.

The point is, is that it was a massive massive challenge to train for something that I found horrendously gruelling, more specifically mentally than physically. I am and remain beyond grateful to those that cared enough to sponsor me, and I donated all the monies raised directly to the ward at RM where my brother died, and to building the chemotherapy unit here.

What I hope the OP is getting at (and what I'm getting at), is sponsoring people to do something that isn't a challenge or is generally something they enjoy is relatively pointless. Many of my friends are marathoners or ultra-marathoners. If they decided to ask for sponsorship, most people would look at them like - like sponsoring people to grow facial hair. I'm all for raising awareness of testicular cancer (which my brother died from), but is it a challenge to grow hair? That seems to be the point those people that baulk at sponsoring these causes make.

Much like the "sponsor me in dry January" = give you money for you not to drink in January? No.

I think asking for sponsorship when there is a personal challenge involved (like the lady jumping out of a plane despite her fear of heights to raise money in honor of her baby) is absolutely reasonable and I would be happy to do so. Raising monies to honor someone else is noble.

Asking people to pay for your trip to trek the Andes, not so much.

LST - I sponsored three of my friends to shave their heads for Heroes for Hannah (US charity that raises money for childhood cancers) - I don't think anyone is suggesting that people would be offended to be asked to sponsor you. Shaving your head (especially as a woman) is a very big thing, it changes your perception of yourself and is a very worthy cause. Emotionally it is a challenge (unless you shave your head all the time of course). That's the difference.

I don't have time to volunteer in a local charity shop, what with a full time career, a husband that works 70 hours a week, two young kids, two dogs and a home to keep organised, so I do what I can, the only way I can.