Rich people getting sponsored to do fun stuff

[SmuggleStudies]

Fucking hell, another extremely wealthy acquaintance has just done this. It makes no sense. You like running half marathons, so do it. If you want to donate, then great - you could give thousands and it would be like one of us dropping a tenner. Why ask your colleagues, who are on average considerably less well off, to give so you can further feed your ego?

AIBU to think most charity sponsorship bis bullshit?

YANBU.

Also sponsoring Little Jimmy to build a wall in an African school etc.

I agree completely. Especially when it's like "Donate £1000 so I can go skydiving/bungee-jumping/on holiday FOR CHARITY". Fuck no. How about you just volunteer or donate to a charity yourself rather than guilt-tripping your friends and family into paying for your holiday/leisure activity.

Annoys the shit out of me.

Oh and I've heard that the voluntourism (i.e. building structures in "Africa") can hurt local economies, and that locals will often have to rebuild whatever piece-of-shit construction the rich kids built in the first place (because, predictably, rich kids from western europe tend to have little experience of actual construction work and therefore tend not to build things to the best building standards)

No, just no. Even in my people pleasing 20's I refused to do this. Fund your own skydive cf.

Yanbu.

YANBU in some cases...

The whole 'I'm spending £5000 to 'walk part of the Great Wall of China'/'play with elephants in Thailand'/'go sailing in the Caribbean' could you sponsor me?' is getting a bit annoying.

Could you not just give the £5000 to charity?

But running a marathon or cycling the length of the uk for a small cost then asking for sponsorship is fair enough. At least then the cost of participation is lower than the amount of money raised.

YANBU. No. I don't want to subsidise your trip to Peru to do your fucking hobby while you shine your fucking halo.

I completely agree

I read somewhere that if everyone running the London marathon spent the same amount of time they did training actually volunteering for charity that it would be worth 10xs the amount raised from actually running.

But then people would not get a medal and all the plaudits.

I work for a charity and the fuss we make of our marathon runners in comparison to our local volunteers who run support groups, sometimes for 20 years is sickening.

People obviously have time and energy to spend running - why not spend it actually physically helping.

Just say no. I have an annual amount I donate to my chosen charities. Its what I can afford and I then give extra to emergency appeals. I do not give sponsorship money to friends and am happy to explain why.

A cousin of mine was looking for people to fund her trip to the Alps or somewhere so should do a sponsored hike or something. I refused I don't mind giving her a tenner or something for the actual hike bit, but i aint funding what is essentially a glorified holiday.

Thank you all for helping me to feel less like a miserable old arse.

FWIW I donate monthly by direct debit to chosen charities I've looked into thoroughly. I don't object to charities.

But I think I object to people who could just donate the money themselves getting other people to do it instead while basking in self-righteousness...

I have several on Facebook and I have to hide them. One does something every year. Last year it was walking the Great Wall, this year it's climbing a mountain in Nepal. It just feels like they're asking people to pay for their annual holidays and is a bit of a piss take.

That's interesting @Basecamp65

When it's holidays, it's insane.

But TBH, even if it's something really hideous and grueling, I still think it makes no sense... And actually, all the people who do this seem to like hideous and grueling...

YANBU - Drives me up the fucking wall. It’s always people who have cash and then they act really smug about it. Sadly doing these things on mountains or whatever doesn’t compensate for not having a personality.

YANBU. I agree completely. I find the hypocrisy wearing.

A friend just did a sponsored wing walk and I felt exactly the same.

It never makes sense - if you were going to walk the Great Wall of China then it would cost thousands in terms of flights, hotels, food, things you'd have to buy for the journey, taxi to the airport etc etc. If someone's so keen on that charity why not just donate that money and stay home?

Yep, acquaintance has been asking for funds to send her son to Kilamanjaro! It’s in aid of something of course but really just a jolly. They’re not rich, middling amongst our group, but bloody hell... begging?! For a holiday?!

What funds will it raise? It’s all spent on travel.

Not many people took her up on her offer..

I agree. Our local school encouraged parents to give money to one parent to go and do a run in New York. If he did a run in the UK, the sponsor money he would not spend on flights, accommodation for him and his Wife, could have gone to the charity he was supposedly doing it for.

So glad to see this thread!

@Basecamp65 that’s sickening and I can see how true it is too!

The worst I know personally is a very middle class single woman in her 50’s, fundraising so she can take a historical trip to Greece and Egypt and share her knowledge with everyone. She’s fundraising £3000. This year she’s bought a new car and had two holidays, one to America and one to Italy. She has a sob story about how hard life has been for her with her recent divorce and arthritis, and how she hopes everyone supports her in her quest to break free and for once put herself first. She sends a weekly email with all her totals and another request for funds, and has posted it on all her friend’s Facebook walls. Most of her friends have considerably less money than she does. She’s also asked her patients to donate. It’s beyond sickening. I don’t see how this stuff is legal either.

Simple. Don't donate. I don't.

And don't even get me started on voluntourism in secondary schools. Thousands upon thousands of pounds for them to descend on some poor bastards in the third world to build a shitty wall that's scheduled for demolition the moment they turn their back.

Like the time a girl I'd been at school with, her parents won a rather life changing amount of money on the lottery, then she appeared in the local paper on the scrounge to fund her trip to the Galapagos a few years later (only child and the money wasn't frittered away)

I know, @Hopoindown31... it should be that simple. When it's a friend, though, I still donate, whilst secretly thinking BS BS BS...