Once in a lifetime trip disguised as fundraising for Charities

[staveleymum]

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for people raising money for Charity. People asking for sponsorship for things like Marathons, 1000 miles walked in a year, midnight walks, etc. I'm also on board with Red Nose Day, Children in Need, PTA fundraising, kids clubs fundraising and everything else that seems to constantly need money to run.

BUT I just don't get fundraising for things like hiking up Kilimanjaro or funding a trip to Borneo (for a 16 year old) to build a school or some such similar. Both these events need to raise £4,000 so they are on facebook, justgiving, etc trying to raise the money. My issue is that of the £4,000 needed how much will actually go to charity. This covers flights, accommodation, food, guides, etc - surely this is just something that they want to do as a personal thing and wrapping it up in Charity and getting others to pay for it?

I'd love to walk over Sydney Harbour Bridge but I wouldnt dream of masking it in Charity and hoping others will pay for it with perhaps 5-10% of the money raised actually going to the Charity?

I know I don't have to sponsor but I'd rather just give the donation directly to the Charity. AIBU?

Yeah with you.

I remember a partner in a law firm I worked in getting everyone to sponsor him. This guy earned (depending on the profits that year) c. £2 million a year. He could've paid for his own fucking trip to Tibet.

Yep. Not on that scale but I got called tight for not sponsoring someone to do a skydive. They'd always wanted to do a skydive, and they found a charity that if they raised a certain amount they didn't have to pay anything. They didn't care about the charity itself at all.

I agree. I think young people taking time out of studies or work to travel and work in orphanages or build schools is a great thing for the young person and the charities. Part of that is them having to get a job to fund all or most of the trip.

Oh, I hate this so much. YANBU. I wish people wouldn't dress their holiday up as an amazing sacrifice. Stay home and just send the money instead.

YANBU, I never sponsor chancers doing this kind of thing, it's selfish and rude to ask someone to fund your fun under the guise of charity.

totally agree in general, but what I hadnt realised previously was that big organisations, eg London Marathon, charge the charities for the places. So almost everyone running for eg Save the Children; their place has been paid for by the charity itself. Obviously some people who have got a place will do it off their own bat for their chosen cause, but I honestly thought the 'official' charity places were given by the event organisers out of the goodness of their heart.

I agree.

I think young people taking time out of studies or work to travel and work in orphanages or build schools is a great thing for the young person and the charities. Part of that is them having to get a job to fund all or most of the trip.

Not necessarily (see link below). Many of the poeple who go on these trips won't have fundraised themselves, their wealthy parents will have paid.
www.thedebrief.co.uk/news/real-life/thinking-of-volunteering-to-help-build-an-orphanage-on-your-gap-yah-think-again-20150438854

Oh yes, I have wondered about this, why should I sponsor your bungy jump in Dubai living in a luxury hotel? (Mum in school) very strange

Totally agree.

Way before these fund raising sites started up, a colleague of mine was asking us to sponsor her boyfriend to do a sky dive. It cost about £150 just for that then anything on top of that went to charity.

I pointed out that he was supposed to pay for the 'event' himself and then ALL the money gathered went to the charity. She just looked at me like this and said 'but he's always wanted to do one'.

I declined to sponsor him.

Ds age 15 8a currently fundraising to gonwith Urban Saints to Mexico to vuild a home for a family.

It costs £700 and yes it will be an amazing experience for him. I dont however think it will be less of an experience fo the family who will get their first home ever. It will also be hard work there is 1 day of leisure planned.

He and the team each have to raise their costs we as parents have been told to ot simply shell out for them

I think that is a good thing. And yes i think it is charity. I do get where you are coming from though and 700 is a lot less than 4000 i just cant say outright it is a bad thing.

A couple of the schools local to me always seem to have teens fundraising for these kind of trips, and I always feel very bah humbug about it. I'm sure it's an amazing experience for the young person concerned, but raising thousands to send a teen with zero construction skills to a poor country doesn't sit well with me.

If the schools really cared about the charity/area then they'd send the money raised directly there to pay locals to do the work. If the money went into the local economy and the school or clinic got build it would be a win win thing, otherwise it's just a jolly for the kids with more than a whiff of 'white mans burden' about it.

Enko And what skills will your 15 year old bring to building a house, that aren't available in the community?

YANBU OP. I refuse to give to colleagues who do these trips. Very grating when I know the salaries they are on!

I think it is even worse when they are fundraising for "missionary" or "short term missions" or poverty tourism. It really is just an expensive vacation.

I know of someone who raised $5,000 for a week in Africa "ministering to the locals" and handing out Bibles.

Take a look at JKRowling's Lumos charity which explains why Orphanage Tourism is extremely damaging. Not only do you have the upset it causes to the kids to have a constant stream of ever-changing random strangers parading through their homes - would you like it if your kids' teachers and keyworkers were changed twice a month? - but the money the orphanages can make from wealthy Western poverty-tourists leads to far more dubious practises, like pressuring parents to put their children in the orphanages in the first place, or lying to them by claiming it's a school. Very few children in these orphanages are actually orphans. Instead, their parents were promised they'd get 'a better life'. A life stuck posing for pictures with do-gooders.

So, YANBU, it's a holiday dressed up as a charity effort, and YADNBU because the whole practise should be discouraged. There's no wall that needs building by clumsy, untrained tourist-hands, no orphanage that will benefit from a rich student's short-term visit. Exploitative, corrupt money-making that gets rich off the back of people who think they're doing good.

Yanbu at all. Dh and I trekked Kilimanjaro as part of our honeymoon. On the flight over there were a big group of people wearing t shirts for a charity and obviously off to do Kilimanjaro too - they were all sat in business class. Also a woman that was part of our group had raised money and used some of it to buy kit for the trek, she seemed to think it was totally fine. I was just baffled by the whole thing.

If you want to climb a mountain then do it. Don't get everyone else to pay for it and disguise it as you being really charitable. It's just "pay for me to go to the pub and I'll put the change in the charity tin".

YANBU. Is this real? The audacity to ask for donations to fund a fancy trip! I know kids who do that but their wealthy parents fund them! Those trips are fucking expensive because those are kids and they need constant supervision. I wouldn't give a penny.

As long as we are on the subject of fundraising, here's another one I see all the time (in US) that I would never give a penny to -- High school lacrosse players (or other sports) standing at traffic lights or supermarket entrances, holding a can and asking for donations to fund a trip to some competition in another state. Seriously? Strapping young men BEGGING?? Why don't they actually DO something in exchange for donations? Like go door-to-door offering to take out bulk items or shovel driveways or do small repairs or move furniture or mow the lawn, etc.

And what skills will your 15 year old bring to building a house, that aren't available in the community?

Spot on. If the money raised was used to pay local tradesmen to build the house then the families would get somewhere to live and it would put money in to the local economy via wages

"It costs £700 and yes it will be an amazing experience for him. I dont however think it will be less of an experience fo the family who will get their first home ever"

Woiukdnt it make more sense to raise the money and send it to the people who can then invest that money into the local economy, thus making jobs for their neighbours and a house for themselves.?
If your child want to learn to be. Builder, there's many many local builders who would likely be happy to take on an apprentice to teach him. Thus giving him proper qualifications, leading to a new local business in your neighbourhood and give him the means to earn his own money which he can then spend to go to any country he wishes to build as many houses s he wishes.

Enko And what skills will your 15 year old bring to building a house, that aren't available in the community?

^^ EXACTLY. Are there no poor people within 3 hr driving radius of where you live Enko??

Yup, drives me insane. I have a steady stream of colleagues who are fundraising for 'charity'...funny how none of them are planning to offer skills to the communities or teach or go into the refugee camps. Nope, they are backpacking in Thailand/living on game reserves in Africa. My personal favourite is the driving across the USA 'for cancer research'. dick head.

Itsallgoibgtobefine. I have just read that link you posted and I am quite shocked. Funnily enough DH and I (both of us did the backpacking round the world ticket) were saying that it's all about worthy travelling these days if it's needed or not. Truly had my eyes opened by that piece

I have often wondered this! Surely rather than raise the money to do the hike you just raise money and give it to the charity.

If I donate or sponsor someone it is not because of the act of what they are doing, it is because I want to donate to the cause. So if they just explained to me about the charity and the good work they do I would be just as likely to donate.

YANBU - This always irritates me! On the other hand I don't mind sponsoring if they pay themselves. I recently sponsored a colleague who climbed Kilimanjaro raising money for a charity but she (and the people she went with) paid for the trip/climb/guides/equipment etc. so everything that was gifted did go the charity. That's the only time I find it acceptable.

Totally agree. Now I'm in my late 40s these bloody trips seem to be part and parcel of the mid life crisis. "I just want to give something back, I am so blessed" etc etc . Vomit. Usually said by greedy buggers who've been on the take their while careers.

Luckily my late 40s has brought with it the nerve to say "fuck off" , wgjich I didn't have when I was younger.

Don't get me started on the religious poverty tourism of the evangelical churches round here.....