To think that BHF are out of order to incentivise sponsorship gathering for small children?

[Lemonblast]

DC have arrived home from school today with sponsors forms for a Jump Rope for Hearts event in school., which is basically a skipathon.

Happy to ask friends and family for sponsors and then littlest DD says they 'have' to get £50 each. Turns out that collecting £50 sponsorship earns each child a digital skipping rope. Which apparently is a must have when all your friends will be getting one.

I think it's totally unfair to do such a thing. DCs now understand that this is a target rather than a must do, but I know they're disappointed. But we have so many sponsored events throughout the year and ther's no way they could collect £50 each.

Smacks of pure greed in the part of BHF to me. AIBU?

A charity trying to maximise donations isn't what I'd call "greed". I would put most/all the donations you get on one kid's form so they can have the skipping rope thing to share.

YANBU!

This sort of thing really pisses me off, I think it's outrageous conduct from a charity. BHF aren't the only ones that do it though, there was something similar from the NSPCC back when my dc were at primary years ago.

It's using children to emotionally blackmail their parents when the dc are in an environment where they should be protected from this sort of thing, it's not like they or their parents have much choice about going to school.

Yanbu. I hate this sort of activity by charities

Or you could raise whatever they can manage and buy a digital skipping rope from the bhf for £7.50. here that way you are still raising money for the charity, your children get involved and they get their skipping rope.

They are just trying to maximise the amount raised.

It pisses me off. They are using the skipping rope so that children put pressure on their parents to get the £50.

It's disgusting. I complained to school about them after we got 5 of these type of sponsored events. Turned out I wasn't the only one and the school no longer takes part in them.

Wonko each class has a 'prize' for the highest fundraiser in each class so not fair or feasible to lump them together. even with doing so we'd still struggle to get £50. From memory so far this year alone we've already had three sponsored events to collect for.

These big charities need to sort themselves out. They are behaving far too much like businesses, through using chugging, hassling the elderly and vulnerable etc. I've stopped giving to them entirely.
Perhaps they shouldn't pay their chief execs hundreds of thousands of pounds?

Plus schools need to really consider this type of thing, and take a good long hard look at themselves. It's like these vanity publishing books they push, where your child 'has won a place for their work', like thousands of others.

Yep it just seems like such a 'hard sell'.

It annoys me intensely, especially when it's the likes of the NSPCC emotionally blackmailing the children (irony anyone?).

My DS did the skip thing a while back and I flat refuse to gather sponsors for anything so DH took the form to work one day and anyone who wanted his help had to make a donation. DS got almost £200

I'm utterly sick of fundraising sponsorship, tendering for grants crowdfunding and the whole shebang. It's outsourcing what government should be doing so they can cut costs and not take responsibility and I work for a charity .

Going to send a quick email to the Head to flag it up. Lots of grumbling from other parents on the oracle that is FB!

"'m utterly sick of fundraising sponsorship, tendering for grants crowdfunding and the whole shebang. It's outsourcing what government should be doing so they can cut costs and not take responsibility"

Spot on.

This is more an issue with the bigger charities. I work for a smaller one and we're grateful for any fundraising. Suggest to the school that they work with a smaller charity - you often get better feedback about how the money has been used, which I think is really important for children. Agree with the poster above who suggested just buying the rope and sending in what sponsorship you can (or not!)