To be upset mums at school seem totally disinterested in helping me fundraise

[Kiwikiss1]

My children attend a private school and many of the parents there are fairly comfortable financially. I am running the London Marathon for charity and have started to fundraise. After Christmas, I put a notice on the class FB page saying that if anyone had any excess toys, clothes etc they were planning to get rid of, I would collect it and sell it at a car boot sale and donate all proceeds to my charity. I received no response. I put the same message on my town's community page and received an overwhelming response and now have a shed stuffed full of items to sell.

Tonight I asked a group of school mum friends if they could recommend a restaurant in the town my children's school is located in which would have the space to allow me to hold a fundraising function. I planned to ask the venue to offer a set menu for a discounted price and raffle off donated prizes (such as a restaurant voucher, beauty treatments and free personal training sessions). I only asked as I do not know the town that well as we live in another location. Again, I have received no response (although they have all seen it).

I consider these women to be my friends. We have gone for many nights out and I am always first to donate to any group-brought birthday presents (of which there are many, although I have never been on the receiving end of a gift for my birthday) and offer support if they are going through a tough time. I want to organise a cake sale at school to help fundraise but now I am worried my friends will not be receptive to being asked to donate some goods to sell. Trying to bake everything myself will be a bit of a challenge!

I guess I am just confused as I have always been the first to help them, and now no one seems prepared to help me, even though it is for charity. I am not a fundraising 'bore', this is the first time I have ever asked for any support. AIBU to feel a bit disheartened?

From your post they seem a selfish bunch who aren’t much interested in you, your marathon or cause. It’s great what you’re doing but find some real friends or at least some interested people to support you and fundraise with. Please stop with the birthday presents and give the money you would have spent to charity. This school community doesn’t seem like a great environment for your child either.

Your asking too much, that simple and being quiet pushy about it
People dont want to declutter after a busy christmas
Bake sales just after people make new years resolutions to lose weight, give up junk? Not such a wise idea
People have no money now, its just been christmas ffs, from presents to trips away money is spent and gone, now comes the credit card bill shock for many, even the well off
Plus you want a school and restaurant to chip in in various ways, what are you to them? Especially the restaurant?
5 or 10 isnt good enough? Well get stuffed then, thats all i ever give to charity, if i have the money. I also expect a reciept and proof your charity is legit

The issue is that charity places for marathon are a very expensive way of raising money (about 67% of the money required from the runner will cover the cost of the place which the charities buy from the marathon).

e.g. fundraising requirement is 1,800. Charity plays 1,000 for the place plus incurs 200 internal costs to organise the "squad".

It's still "worth it" for the charity but it's not good value for the donor, especially as the intangible benefit (the enjoyment of the event etc) doesn't accrue to the donor the way that it would if they attended an equally inefficient fundraising event such as a gala dinner.

Then, on top of that, because there is such high "donor fatigue" which means that most people cannot rely on just an online page, the runner then runs equally inefficient events (pub quizzes, bake sales etc which all have their own costs) to raise the 1,800. It ends up with the margin going to about 20-25% if you look at total costs incurred by both the runner and the charity.

It's just not sustainable.

I have to admit I'm rather saddened by most of replies on here.

I can't imagine not sponsoring a friend doing a marathon or to be honest, almost any non 'fun' charity event. By 'fun' I mean the walking Great Wall of chine/ inca trail/ bungee jump type events which most people would happily do for fun if they could fund themselves.

I walked 100km in one go (no sleep!) last year for charity and raised almost £4000 through just giving. I'm so pleased people donated and it makes me sad that so many are saying they don't donate as a rule.

Never in a million years would I have chosen to put myself through the horror of those 25 hours for fun. Nor the hours and hours of hill training/ trekking after work, night walks through till morning to train for fatigue, walking in torrential rain/ boiling hot sun at various points in the 6 months before the event. I'm proud I completed it but will never do it again!

I guess I see sponsorship as sponsoring my friends rather than the charity in a way, so it doesn't matter to me if I wouldn't usually support that cause. I give regularly to two charities that I have a personal affiliation with and drop a pound or two in charity boxes when I have it but why would that stop me sponsoring my friends from doing things to raise money for their own chosen causes?

See, I do do that stuff for fun. (Distance walks. Marathons.) Because I want to. But I wouldn’t ask other people to find it.
Charity running places aren’t my least favourite though. That would be head shavers.

If I want to donate money to a charity, I want it all to go to the charity. I don’t want most of it to go to event management.

I tend to give £10 or so to a friend doing any kind of sponsored event - just to support my friend.

But my views on the London Marathon are a bit tainted by the huge amount of disruption and waste it generates. All those water bottles and space blankets - you honestly think they all get recycled? The last time I watched the race a road sweeping machine followed a few minutes behind the last runners. Perhaps it has moved on now, but I am not sure it stacks up environmentally.

No one wants to point out to another parent in their social circle that they think their plans are no good. They want to keep quiet and hope it goes away. That doesn't make them bad people - just people with lives to lead.

As for requests for bloody sponsorship or donations of physical items (that also have monetary value and time spent arranging)... It's like the bake sale thing: disengage, disengage, disengage. Urgh.

Good luck with your race Op. That's YOUR race, of course. But yes the birthday presents thing - I suspect you're the person driving those other collections and that other people either don't think to organise for you or don't want to for anyone.

I have to admit I'm rather saddened by most of replies on here
I would happily sponsor a friend doing something.
I don't feel the same way being asked by colleagues or acquaintences every few weeks.

I have a massive issue with the way fitness events are being takeb over by large charities who then decide people must fundraise stupid amounts of money to be able to run/cycle/walk the event. It used to be just big eventa like London marathon, but it is creeping ibto smaller events too. It annoys me that soon nobody with a hobby will be able to do events without someone pesteribg them for money for charity and it will become more difficult to get ballot places in events.

I'd happily donate to a friend, but would be a littls fed up if they were expecting me to support lots of fundraising events (even if I hate thr system that makes getting places tough).

Tbh, I am a bit sick of hearing "for charity". We do already donate monthly to a charity. But when the people come knocking on the door, I try to give them some, but they actually refuse, and demand me to sign up for monthly donation. Most of them are nice, but some are horrible when I explain to them we already have chosen charity.
Also the school runs about 3 charity events a year, and there's no choice but to pay since if you don't, kids are going to miss out. On top of that, they have continuous fund raising event for school itself, which is great, but it adds up quite expensive. Not everyone has unlimited expense.

I did a 10k run for the National Children's Bureau, and raised £500.

Afterwards, there was no acknowledgement or thank you from the NCB. Not even an email.

Even though they were emailing us pre-event encouraging us to get more donations.

I would also be wary of asking friends/colleagues to sponsor me too often.

I can understand that your request for a local restaurant to.do discounted meals left people bemused

Our local pub/restaurant would do something like this, and has even donated free dinners, but only to locals who are very regular customers

You can't just walz in as an outsider asking for money off/discounted meals

That sort of thing can happen only if there is a relationship (and a long history of you supporting/frequenting this place)

I still don’t get all the justification for running a marathon for charity - essentially you pay the charity an entry fee to run the event so you raise the money in advance. Aren’t you actually fundraising by bag packing, car booting etc and you could do that anyway. The run part therefore seems irrelevant (though I do understand the personal reasons and achievement aspect)

To my mind the old fashioned ‘sponsor xx pounds for each mile completed’ was about fundraising from actually running/walking/cycling.

Think you need some new friends!!!! Or could it be they don't like the charity you're involved with?

To my mind the old fashioned ‘sponsor xx pounds for each mile completed’ was about fundraising from actually running/walking/cycling.

Yes, and I don't remember when this went out of fashion.

I remember a situation where some of us sponsored a friend to do a run (5k or 10k ish, can't remember) and when it came to it she needed to drop out. Heated discussion about whether the sponsorship money was still owed. Fwiw she said "no, because the money was for me to run and I'm not running" and her boyfriend said "you were all happy to give the money to yesterday, so give it today".

There are a lot of people on here not understanding how London marathon charity places work?!

Buying places? Paying for someone's experience? Bloody hell

And no, a JG page for people to throw in £5/£10 will not on its own raise £2,000!!

OP here's some tips on what I did:

• JG page
• FB page
• held a charity night with a raffle
• wrote to local businesses for prize donations
• went out around local pubs in fancy dress with a collection bucket (free licence required from local authority and email permission from each pub landlord)
• my employer match funded sponsorship from my colleagues

I did find that initially sponsorship was slow, but I think that's because it was a long way off, in the 2-3 weeks immediately before D-Day donations on my just giving page shot up.

I'm ok with people not donating or getting involved if it's not their thing, but a particular group of my so called friends didn't even acknowledge what I was doing, not even so much as a "good luck" or "well done". For this and other reasons I'm NC with them now - doing things like this DEFINITELY shows peoples true colours

There are a lot of people on here not understanding how London marathon charity places work?!

Buying places? Paying for someone's experience? Bloody hell confused

Yes they do understand how it works.

Charity pays e.g £500 for the place and they then pass on the place to someone who wants to run the marathon and who agrees to raise a minimum amount in sponsorship, usually in the region of £1800-£2500.
Most participants are not able to raise that amount just by sponsorship for the run though, so they end up doing other fundraising events so that they don't have to make up the shortfall from their own pocket.
So all of those extra events that they want people to contribute are funding their place/experience.

Nooka thank you. I don't care if this is seen as an "inefficent" way of raising money. It still will raise money so thats all that matters. The £500 includes petrol costs to London and a hotel for 3 nights for me, DH and our 2 boys.

Crazyunicornlady
They aren't justifying running the marathon by saying it is for charity.
What has happened is whereas popular running events used to be runners runnung them, a few people wanting a real challenge and maybe raising a little bit of funds for your local charity, now normal people have to pay money to go into the ballot, get no refund if theu don't get a place and then if they still want to run the event they have to go to the hundreds of charities who have got places. Charities know events are popular for runners so rather tjan people sign up and just do notnal fundraising and get a couple of hundred, the charities set minimum amounts and if the runner doesn't fundraise that amount they have to pay out of their own pocket.
In short, charities are charging people thousands to enter runs that cost less than £100 to enter.
It seems that it is getting more and more difficult to get normal running places in events becaude charities see it as a big cash cow.

Ffs Laguna! You are telling people they are donating to x charity but actually their money is going to pay for a break for your family!

I think we all understand how it works.Thank you.It doesn't alter the fact that people are funding someone's challenge/dream.otherwise people would give the money straight to the charity and cut out the runners expenses

Can I just ask what made you think of these other people as friends?

I agree with Firecracker, at a push you could argue for v budget accommodation for the runner but surely you and the boys could pay your own way Laguna? 500 travel and accommodation is a holiday.

Buying places? Paying for someone's experience? Bloody hell confused

Yes- what don't you understand? The charities pay the London marathon organisers for each place that they re allocated, so essentially the charity donors are subsidising the cost of the London marathon.