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?

I have recently been called uncharitable because I won't buy into this crap.
Work colleague did this a few years ago. Spent shit loads of cash to do well, nothing really.
Fast forward wants to repeat it this year. But with the same twist. It's costing 30k to basically let this person back pack around various countries helping out people. Did it a few years ago aparantly and it was awesome. Other people are lapping up every word. Donate teens its for a good cause.
Really what good cause would that be?
Many people would be touched.
Maybe so but exactly how is a charity benefiting
The people along the way will have a wonderful experience.
How does it benefit them won't feed or shelter them.
Gosh teens didn't realise you are this uncharitable
I'm not. Just failing to see the charity aspect. If the 30k was going to the food bank, shelter, woman's aid, teach skills, any other charity I would and do support. Help to fund someone's 30k holiday they need
To do like the rest and save up and take themselves.

I have also supported someone who did a legit climb. Worked overtime and extra job to pay own costs and every penny raised went to the named charity. I have no qualms with these. No different to any
Other sponsorship. It's a shame the other Ines give these types such a bad reputation.

Rubies12345 Sorry that was in reply to fj3568 about their daughter raising this much money to go to Africa :)

Although it is good you're warning people about the scam!

My brother went to Africa to build houses - it was something that his work had encouraged him to do. Him and a colleague raised nearly £25k but my brother found the whole process to be deeply flawed and lots of people were on the take. They would only allow him to work a few hours a day - made him rest on a Sunday as it was the lords day. He was incredibly upset that he'd taken money from well meaning friends and family and it had been squandered.
Round here kids do jobs like babysitting and dog walking, run quizs to raise money for these big trips - I've never been asked to sponsor them and if I were I'd say no.

I have a friend who is walking the Great Wall of china to 'raise awareness' of depression.
He's pissed the money isn't coming in - I suspect as everyone paid for him to go to Mexico 2 years ago for the same thing. ( a paid holiday wearing a charity t shirt)

I know someone recently who went to Africa for 3 days to build toilets and raised the money to go. I can't imaging how expensive the flights were and would have been better spent elsewhere.

A chap I know sadly went on a fund raising trip to do a long distance walk in South America to raise money for a charity relating to the condition that his wife died from. He presented it as a fund raising trip and raised the money to pay for it and then jetted off to do the trip just a few months after his wife died and left their two children with relatives

We should start a thing similar to the fundraisers that are "Don't Come" events. In these, people get sent an invitation for a ludicrously over the top event with all the bells and whistles and pay not to go - the idea is they send the money that they would spend on the night otherwise, and it goes to charity.

So... we should start asking donations for extreme voluntourism trips we are not going to make!

I'm going to walk the Great Wall of China, before heading over to Borneo to deliver orangutan babies (stopping en route for two weeks of partying on Thai beaches), then flying over to South America to build houses badly and slowly before having a couple of "wind down" weeks after all my hard work. It'll cost me £7845 (excluding airfare, food and accomodation) and anything left over goes directly to the charity! (and 53p reaches the locals). Who wants to sponser me not to go?

Type thing.

[Also... When I was early 20s I looked into voluntourism in India, was about £3500 for a month (minus airfare!). Went backpacking there instead for

£30K would be an absolute fortune to a third world country - even £3K would be too.

It's scandalous when people put sponsorship money towards flights or anything more than basic subsistence in keeping with local standards.

Rubies I do hope she publicized what happened? Whatever our individual views on this, I doubt anyone would disagree that this was utterly appalling

And poohbears I'd like to think you were joking about getting abuse if your company declines to sponsor these trips - but am very much afraid you're not

It depends!

Sorry but I do know one one couple who did "Trek up Kilimanjaro" to raise money for a charity. a) they paid all their own costs, b) the charity was one they were personally involved in (a partner school of the school my DC attend, with which they have very close ties as they have a shared special interest, and raise thousands for). So all* the money they raised went to the destination, and I don't think anyone didn't pay out just because his wife didn't quite make it due to altitude sickness.

It is scandalous. Thankfully more colleagues are also starting to think wtaf rather than following blindly like sheep.
But the person trying to scam others isn't having any of it. Food costs. Visas. Bribes at border. Accommodation. Treats for locals - not whole villages.

Haven't RTWT, but I'm glad to see it's not just DH and I who have a downer on 'pay for my holiday during which I will build half a wall a local builder could have built better and quicker and more cheaply (and he actually needs the wages...)'

DD was rather keen on doing one of these, and we had to explain gently why we didn't think it was a good idea.

Now you all started me wondering; 4 years ago DD organised and put on a show. She hired the theatre organised publicity coordinated all the acts ( and danced with them)

Ticket sales and donations came to £700 donated to a charity for a school in Zimbabwe

I always assumed this was ok as she really put the work in - but in a lot of ways it was just a Jolly for her in the same way these holidays are - I feel a bit sad now

That is completely different and not what this thread is about at all.

'build houses badly BBCNews.

When he did the first event, I do remember my ex-H being very open about the fact that donations were paying for the trip. I seem to remember him saying "we need to raise at least £2000 to pay for the trip, anything we get over that goes to charity". That included travel, meals, hotel rooms etc. And when they reached their £2000 it was very much "woohooo! Now the charity starts to get some money, thanks everyone!"

To be fair, they did post photos on Facebook every day to show everyone what a great time they were having, which was nice of them.

x2boys
''Today on cowboy builders we're fixing an awfully built schoolhouse.''
''Why is that?''
''Well we paid a load of fucking 16 year olds who have no idea how to build a wall, never mind a whole building to do it!''

I used to work for a charity, very little of our Kilimanjaro trekkers (or similar) raised a huge amount net for us, the only time it was profitable for us was when a corporate paid the costs for their employees as part of their charity partnership with us and we got all the fundraising. I'd be hesitant to sponsor someone who wasn't paying their own costs for a trek or orphanage building trip.

London marathon places cost us £1600-£1800 each, so by raising £2000 we actually got £200-400, before you account for staff costs etc. It never sat well with me but luckily we had some amazing people who raised more than £2000. I was always honest about the cost of the places, and our supporters quite often chose a less expensive marathon to do so more money went to us.

but they had a great experience and felt very worthy and raised tuppence halfpenny for charity all at the same time7Sunshine

MyCat '...her help (along with another 39 volunteers and a full medical team) ensured that 25 families with very ill children could have a holiday of a lifetime.'

You see, THAT to me is genuinely beyond worthwhile and I'd happily sponsor a friends DC to do that. Your DD came second and - rightly so - the children suffering with illness came first. And it facilitated things that would not otherwise have happened. To me, what your DD did is literally the polar opposite of trips where it is patently obvious it is not about the people that are being 'helped', rather it is about little Darren or Tarquin's 'experience' and they^ come 'first', their 'experience' being the thing that matters most.

And crucially, what your DD did wasn't something that in any way distorts the local economy thus worsening the overall situation, not remotely 'helping' in the macro sense of the worse. I'd both happily sponsor someone doing what she did and be really proud of my DC if they did that for others.

Asking people to sponsor you to run the marathon is pretending that you are sacrificing your time and energy to help the needy.

Not always. Admittedly I'm not running a marathon, but a very close friend died of cancer last year so I've signed up for a 10K run in May in aid of a cancer charity.

I'm a novice runner (started Couch to 5K from scratch last summer, managed 10K a couple of times now). Family and friends are sponsoring me because they know I'm doing something which for me involves bloody hard work.

I could have just donated to the charity, but I freely admit that this is a kind of bereavement therapy as much as anything else. Besides I'm up to nearly £1500 and I could never have afforded to donate that.

Asking people to donate so I could go to Borneo in her memory would have felt like taking the piss though.

Empress I agree; its hard work to run a marathon and if you're doing it anyway and paying your own entry fee (if there is one) and all money goes to the charity, not buying the runner better equipment then its fine as no money that is going to the charity comes away at all.

I fucking hate this. I was asked at uni to sponser a couple of people so they could go abroad and do charity work, I can't remember what for. I asked how they'd managed to save enough to afford their flights and accommodation and they just looked at me blank. One of them then piped up that it was "part of what they were raising money for." I said I'd rather just send the money directly to the charities rather than paying for their trip. That's probably the bravest I've ever been!

My friend runs a youth club and playscheme for disabled teens (some with very complex disabilities indeed). The brilliant thing about it is each child has a 1:1 volunteer support who is also a teen - one of the unseen things about disability is children often spend the vast majority of their time with adults. It's a brilliant, brilliant model. She lives in a mixed area and it's very noticeable that the majority of the volunteers are from the less niace part of the county. The niace area children are all too busy fundraising for their gap yah, the other kids are just rolling their sleeves up and helping in their community. Brilliant kids.

I find similar at the playscheme. We're inundated with volunteers from 16-19 (if we had so many adult volunteers life would be much easier!) because they've realised a reference looks good for college/uni applications. I have a policy now if a parent tries to organise the volunteering we don't find a place for them because they invariably don't actually want to help - they are happy to join in games or paint a model to guide the kids, but washing cups? Tidying up? Not a chance.

I pay all my own costs like fees and travel to run marathons etc but I don't do them for charity as I feel uncomfortable asking people for money when everyone else is constantly asking. I'm doing the marathons because I want to, I like running, like the challenge and it forces me to go out and run when the weather is shit and I'd sit on the sofa consuming wine and chocolate otherwise! It feels unfair pretending it is a hardship and then telling people they need to donate to a charity of my choice for no other reason than I'm doing something I want to do and would still do anyway.

YANBU. Irritating twenty something at work decided to white water raft the Zambezi, shortly after she got married. Sent out numerous notes to the Dept asking us to sponsor her 'for charity'. No, just no.