London marathon

[guest2013]

A girl I work with has signed up to run the London marathon. She says it's on her bucket list and something she's wanted to do for a long time.
Now I don't know much about the ins and outs of getting a place but I have deducted from what she's said that she didn't get a place that she could have chosen the charity so she's basically chosen the charity that has the smallest amount you need to raise, that she knows nothing about and has absolutely no interest in.
What do you think of this? Just something about it isn't sitting right with me and I feel like I don't want to donate! AIB ridiculous? I mean it's still for charity after all?? It's just frustrating hearing about her running but nothing about the charity, for example her last WhatsApp message to all us colleagues was a link to her donation page and a comment saying help all this pain (from her training) to be worth it and help me get to 26 miles! Not a thing about the charity!

[guest2013]

Yes, it's a bit embarrassing to see her just sort of half arsed fund raising.. she wants the money but not for the right reasons. But in the end it does go to charity I suppose!

[IzzyWotNotNoo]

Everyone in my running club does this.

The charity benefits.

I don't see a problem with it.

I want to run London, I didn't get into the ballot. If I have to make do with a charity place at some point I won't just pretend I'm doing it for the charity, that's more disingeneous.

[NotStoppedAllDay]

Well I got a ballot last year and didn't need to fundraise at all

But I still chose a charity and raised a bit

I think she's bloody amazing doing the training TBH

[MsHooliesCardigan]

I've done the London Marathon 3 times in the last 10 years, all through charity places that I feel really passionate about and donate to via direct debits. I've raised nearly £15,000 and completely agree that the fundraising was harder than actually running the Marathon- I did it last year after an 8 year break and found raising the money much harder than the last 2 times, even though I had a wider pool of people to ask and was doing it for a charity with more 'appeal'. I found that there was a definite sense of compassion/charity fatigue which I didn't come up against the first 2 times that I did it.

[EmpressOfTheSpartacusOceans]

It does work both ways I think. I decided to sign up for a 10K because I wanted to raise money for a specific charity, my pot's at nearly £1,200 now and that's a pretty strong incentive to keep training. If I signed up for a marathon then the more money I raised, the more it would spur me on to finish.

[MatildaTheCat]

I think she should make an effort to find out about the charity and promote them because it's not all about her bucket list. If it's any consolation small charities are often far more careful with their scarce resources and are less likely to waste money on high salaried CEOs, marketing and expensive premises than some of the really big ones.

Tell her to explain why people should be supporting her cause because we are all bombarded with requests and each of us needs to choose who we donate to carefully. It's not about 'paying' for her to get a place.

In short YANBU .

[Hulababy]

I suppose in some ways it's a good way for smaller charities to raise some awareness - most people do try and find out more about the charity and obviously their fund raising efforts do mean other people will hear about them through that too - and raise funds.
Probably the smaller less known charities benefit far more in many ways than the big well known charities, even if initially the runners didn't chose them as a first choice option. The end result is a positive.

Maybe see it more as a sponsored or supported option to run a big race. THe charity offers normal runners the chance to run a sought after marathon in return for funds and awareness.

[lostatsea1]

I am unsure about all these charity fund raisers climb kilimanjaro etc etc as well as the marathon. I always feel like I'm being expected to pay for someone to have an experience......

Another side is if everyone running in the marathon today had spent their time doing volunteer work instead of training just think how much good they could have done.

I work for a charity that raises money through the marathon and has volunteers and I know which contributes the most.....it ain't the few grand we raise from runners.

[TessaTeacake]

I''m with you OP. Someone I used to work with ran the marathon 3 years ago, put a heartfelt plea out for sponsorship for the particular charity, and got lots of sponsorship. Last year he ran for a different, equally "close to his heart" charity.. today he's running for a third, completely different charity, and I'm really beginning to think that it's not about the charities at all, it's about him getting the opportunity to run the marathon...

[Hulababy]

The thing is lostatsea - the majority of these runners are people who would will be out running and training in that time anyway, not just doing it because of this one big run, and perhaps just doing smaller races to aim towards. So they wouldn't be suddenly not running in their free time.

I'd see the sponsored charity places more as an added extra to the other form of fundraising and volunteering coming from elsewhere. It may not benefit the charity as much as direct volunteer but surely it must be better than doing nothing for the charity - if it didn't help realise awareness and funds the charities themselves would surely not offer the places in the first instance, which would then actually mean more non-charity places being available for the ballot.

[Hulababy]

But Tessa - what is wrong with it being about him wanting to run the marathon more than cause? The LM is a huge big deal to many long distance runners, more so than most other big city marathons worldwide.

And as said in last post - see the charity raising funds and awareness as an added extra. They must be getting something out of it to make them want to offer these places.

[MyVisionsComeFromSoup]

can I also point out that the charity has to buy the spaces in the first place - I work with a small charity and every year we get people asking if they can use our "charity places", then get quite cross when we point out that, no, we don't have any guaranteed places for the London Marathon, and we couldn't afford them anyway.