To detest performative altruism?

[Auldspinster]

Thousands of people have been sleeping out for charity in various Scottish parks, with various faded Scottish popstars being flown round to perform at each location at a cost of thousands.

Meanwhile, on my way to work just before 7am i passed lots of genuine rough sleepers on benches on Edinburgh's Princes Street who don't have the option of going indoors this morning for hot food, drinks and an soak in a hot bath or shower.

Aibu to find it very distasteful?

YABVU. I just saw this on SKY and they have raised millions of pounds for a homeless charity.

Are you the grinch?

I agree. There are better ways of raising money than 'pretending' to sleep rough.

Agree, OP. Raising money is obviously good, but homelessness isn't a festival.

YANBU. Reminds me of the Pulp song:
“But still you'll never get it right,
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night,
Watching roaches climb the wall,
If you called your Dad he could stop it all.”

That said, if it’s raising money for homeless people it’s hard to argue with that.

Thousands of people seem to disagree with you there OP.

I don’t think anyone believes it’s ‘the same’ but it might well be pushing the participants into a place of empathy when he gets dark and quiet at 3am. And whether it does or doesn’t it’s definitely raising a huge amount of money for the charity.

I thought this too. There are other ways to raise money than pretending you understand what homelessness feels like.

I generally agree with you about these kind of things, but Social Bite is a small, fairly local organisation and seem to actually do some good. I don't think they would ever have been able to raise the kind of money they have without the sleep outs.

The villages they're building with it look excellent and seem to be a really sensible concept so on this one I'm willing to swallow my misgivings. There's worse out there - brave the shave, for example, is one I really dislike.

I'm not disputing that Social Bite do a lot of good, I often pass queues of homeless people waiting for free meals on their cafe on Shandwick Place. It's just the scale of the 'sleep out' operation - it must cost an incredible amount of money to organise which would be better served elsewhere.

. Surely any money it costs is covered and a lot more gained by the money it raises?

YANBU. There are lots of things I don’t like about this organisation and I work in this sector.

I happened to be in Edinburgh while the Sleep Out was on last year and bumped in to Bob Geldolf at the Waldorf, he certainly wasnt sleeping rough that night.

One girl on Facebook kept begging for sponsors reminding everyone that the more they give the better her wrist band will be. At least try and pretend you aren't doing it for a free concert.

I remember thinking last year that surely they were suffering enough, sleeping out in sub zero temperatures without having to hear Bob Geldof 'perform'.

I think I'd pay not to listen to Sir Bob!!!

It's a difficult one; the way charity fundraising seems to have gone these days seems to make it difficult to raise significant amounts without some form of performance in it. My Facebook feed seems to be frequently filled with people trying to be visible about their charitable efforts - doing runs/marathons (even though they're keen runners anyway), shaving heads (then posting hat selfies for fucking months!), abseiling off the Forth Bridge, parachute jumping...The Social Bite cafes are a good concept and seem to work ok, but they're never going to take in enough money for larger scale projects.

I suppose I'm just not convinced that sleeping out in December in Scotland (at least they do it in winter!) is any less of an effort/trial/chore than many of the other options available, free concert or not. It would be far better if charities could just put out an appeal for cash for X project, people quietly donated and the money was raised but that often wouldn't work.

It will cost money to put on but there's no avoiding that for anything significant. How much must it cost to stage the London Marathon?

It's just the scale of the 'sleep out' operation - it must cost an incredible amount of money to organise which would be better served elsewhere.

The organisers will have factored in the cost/potential money raised when they put it on.

This will be far more effective than a quiet appeal for money.