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?

I love a charity cake sale - no objections here!

I think my main gripe with the being sponsored to do fun stuff is that, as said above, it seems most people do it as attention-seeking rather than aiming to raise awareness of the charity.

Also, with these 'raise money for the experience' gigs, it gets pretty tiresome watching the do-gooders get more and more desperate for funds. It's irritating having the conversation repeatedly come up, and with a good bit of guilt-tripping normally thrown in for good measure too.

cadburyegg

I spent a few years in Ghana working on an engineering project and where I was based was not far from a popular spot where many volunteer workers used to hang out. When I say volunteer I generally mean school trips and pre uni gap year kids.

Most of these people had a paid small fortune to spend a few weeks or months doing the usual painting walls, building wells or fences.

From my observations most of these folk were quite useless, had no skills to offer, needed constant supervision and not cut out for physical labour in African heat. One thing most of Africa is not short of is unskilled labour and it was bemusing to see locals scratching their heads wondering why a bunch of rich white kids had been shipped in to do menial tasks that they could do themselves for a few bucks. Most of these kids were exhausted after an hours work in the heat, needed constant breaks, and generally called it a day at lunchtime.

While I am sure the 'volunteers' themselves enjoyed some life affirming experience before heading home and boring the tits off everyone with their self righteous smugness during freshers week but for actually making a difference on the ground I remain sceptical. There are actual proper NGOs and charity's that provide much more targetted and effective intervention using a mixture of skilled personal and not so skilled local workers (who get a wage and learn a trade on the job).

I have actually done this myself but covered all of my own costs and made that clear when I approached my friends and colleagues when fundraising. A few were still understandably unsure about it but they didn’t have to donate anything.

A family I know love what must be a very luxurious life - holidays to Disney and the Caribbean every year, plus at least one other European sunshine holiday and several city breaks every year. Fair play - I am sure they’ve earned it.

However, the recently posted a link on social media asking people to ‘donate’ so their son could spend some time in Africa as part of his medical degree.

I clicked on the link out of sheer nosiness and wasn’t not surprised to see that no one had ‘donated’ a penny (but several people had posted ‘Is this for real?’ type ‘jokey’ comments under the link on the social media post).

Live, not love.

Although I’m sure they also love it

All this “we raised 10k” all about that person - glory glory glory! Ermm so other people donated 10k to charity and you did a fun activity you wanted to do whilst making a big show of it.

It is perfectly possible to raise awareness of charities without pestering people for money.

People can donate to charity themselves and don’t need to do it through you.

Doing a fun activity, expecting others I donate money and making it all about you is pretty nauseating.

I have an acquaintance who seems to very regularly participate in ‘run around a park’ type events for various charities. She takes her young son with her, so they just walk around the park. Her Facebook page was full of her friends talking about what a beautiful, selfless person she was and the amazing lessons she was teaching her son. They didn’t seem to have grasped that she was getting a lot of glory for doing something most parents do anyway and they were the ones paying! I can’t believe she has the cheek to keep asking people to part with their cash because they’re going for a walk.

I fell out with a friend because she committed to donating some amount of money (maybe £2k?) to a charity in order to take part in an activity, then was pestering us all to donate, and I pointed out that us donating just reduced the amount she had to hand over, it didn’t actually increase the amount the charity got, so really she was just badgering friends to give her money....it did not go down well!

It is perfectly possible to raise awareness of charities without pestering people for money.

What exactly do you class as pestering for money? Again, I've never had anyone doing these sorts of things specifically come up to me and put pressure on me to donate. Most sponsorships I've seen are posts on social media or generic "I'm doing this so would appreciate any donations" in the office.

You do not have to part with your money if you don't want to. It's as simple as that.

I’ve run a few marathons etc and did raise money for charity in one of them - but I paid my own entry fee, travel, accommodation etc and all the sponsorship went to the chosen charity. It was done in memory of a good friend who worked for them, and I posted about it once on Facebook and then no more. I’m not a fan of the “help me raise £2000 for this skydive I’m going to do” type thing.

My boss who owns my company is minted
She has more money than I’d see in 20 lifetimes
I’m sick to the back teeth of ‘X is doing a sponsored xyz and please feel free to donate spare cash to the cause-no money is taken for admin-she pays that part’
Well that’s ok then!
I work bloody hard at my minimum wage job on part time hours-I don’t have any spare cash left!
It’s my sweat that enables her to go aboard and look good raising for charity
I really resent anyone doing this (not raising money for charity-the begging part beforehand)

cloudyyy

The £10k point was because of your rather facile comment along the lines of “why not just donate the money spent on the activity to charity”. I don’t have £10k to donate to charity was the point.

And it wasn’t an activity I wanted to do, and it wasn’t “fun” - I hate heights (and flying). There was no “glory”, it wasn’t about us whatsoever. It was about our friend and the charity which helped him. Where did I “pester” anyone for money? I put a link on Facebook once, which loads of mutual friends and his family shared. No one was asked directly, face to face, or more than once, (at least not by me).

Honestly, you sound really mean spirited to find it “nauseating” that in over 30 years I have done one self funded sponsored event for a cause close to my heart.

@NewarkShark

Don't take this thread seriously. This is one of the most tragic AIBU threads I've read recently. Of course you should be proud of your sky dive.

If people took the time to ask why someone is raising money instead of being salty asf about it, I'm sure most of the time they'd learn of a personal reason behind it.

Not sure what being rich has to do with anything either. Most of these replies target anyone who's raising money at all.

That’s very kind honesttruth100 - it’s not that I’m proud of it even, it’s only a tiny thing, but I just hate the suggestion we used our friend’s death to skank our friends out of money for a selfish jolly and personal glory. That honestly wasn’t my motivation and I don’t think it’s the motivation of most people I’ve seen doing sponsored events.

Totally agree.

@NewarkShark I completely agree! I think these suggestions of money grabbing without knowing WHY someone is raising money and not appreciating how difficult these events can be for someone are ridiculous. I'm

I think a big part of it is the idea of fundraising itself - any fundraising. The glory always goes to the person who did the 'fundraising' and it seems to slip a lot of people's notice that it was others who actually stumped up the money - some of them quite possibly in a parlous financial position, but made to feel awkward or mean by the 'fundraiser if they didn't give what they struggled to afford. Even more so if the 'fundraiser' is very wealthy themselves and thinking everybody could at least chuck in 50 quid, when for many, even £5 is more than they have to spare. Of course, plenty of fundraisers do it passively, just holding a bucket in the high street and letting people approach them if they choose to; but when it's somebody you're related to or whom you see every day at work bounding over to you with an enthusiastic "Oh, I know that YOU will sponsor me, won't you?!". Especially when it's still near the top of the form and they, their spouse, their mum etc have sponsored/pledged £100 each and you know you'll look mean to everybody if you're the first to 'only' give a tenner.

Also, I agree with the PP who said some of these people are simply deluded or a bit dim. If a charity tells you that you must raise at least £1,000 to trek Machu Pichu, they think the charity is setting them quite a big target because, naturally, they want to encourage people to raise a significant amount - it doesn't even occur to them that all or most of the minimum is the cost of their amazing holiday/experience and only then, once they've achieved that minimum in sponsorship, does any excess actually start to go to the charity as a net receipt. As some PPs have said, if your motives really are charitable, the very least you should do is give the minimum amount (ideally more) to cover the cost of your holiday, before you start asking people for sponsorship which will actually 100% go to the charity. Even then, though, you'd still get some people exploiting that principle and grandstanding: "I've already given £1,000, myself, so don't tell me that you can't dig deep fir a great cause too." Yes: you've bought yourself a lovely holiday and now you're using that rather mundane fact to try to make me guilty if I don't give a wedge to YOUR favourite charity.

Actually, I wonder how many people choose the charity that's close to their heart first and THEN see what kind of opportunities their chosen charity is offering. Call me a cynic, but I bet a fair few first decide what holiday or experience they want to do, then see which charities are offering it, then see which has the nicest terms (longest trip, smallest minimum amount to raise etc - or just which one has a place left) and only then suddenly start urging everybody to 'get behind them and support this amazing charity that means so very much to them personally".

I don’t think it matters why someone did it. A lot of people feel they want to do something after the death of a loved one. I know I did after my dad died, it’s a feeling of being so helpless and in my case I spent a week walking the SW coast path. Some people asked me what I was doing and why, I told them and some people donated money to a cancer charity. I really think things like that are a bit different - there’s no cost involved, or if there is it’s covered by the participant. The sponsorships I object to are one where the money raised goes towards the costs of the actual activity - so marathon entries, minimum sponsorship requirements before trips are organised on behalf of a charity etc.

I think if people are truly charitable, they dont brag about it, or big themselves up. Their focus is on the charity, and not what they get out of it. Having said that, I get that lots of money has been made for charities this way, I just wish there was a nice way of doing it.

YANBU. It just makes no sense. I would only considering sponsoring someone to do something that actually helps the charity without costing money to do it. For example I would consider sponsoring someone to spend 40 hrs or so cleaning out the cages at the local cat rescue or maybe picking litter for a local environmental charity. But to do something fun, that costs money and that doesn't really help the charity concerned at all - hell no.

I think what is just as bad is where people turn themselves into the charity, on justgiving. So they get into all sorts of scrapes, then expect people to bale them out. And people do.

DD volunteered for a charity for 5 years and then ran a half marathon, asking for sponsorship. She worked for an NGO in Africa using skills only someone doing her particular degree would have. There are valid well intentioned people out there. Before her trip to Africa she asked for specific donations to help the people in the community she was staying in, no money.

If you’d just posted on Facebook that donations to this specific charity in honour of your friend/ relative would be appreciated, do you not think people who wanted to, would be able to donate directly themselves? Without you making a page to count it all and then claim you’ve raised that amount! There wouldn’t be the social pressure to donate or stigma attached to not being on your form to donate in that persons honour. You may absolutely adore that person but not have the spare cash and feel really guilty!! Grief is a terrible thing. Do you think that people are donating in the deceased’s honour or because you’re doing a skydive?? Surely the two aren’t really linked and a skydive in no way benefits the charity. If anything, they’d probably prefer the admission fee as a donation from yourself. You can share lots of info about a charity or cause close to your heart without actually taking credit for any money that is donated.

Yanbu. We have a friend who does this thing every couple of years. This time we said sure we will donate. So we made a donation straight to the charity of her choice online and sent her a screen shot. She said no I asked you to sponsor me. I replied that she has made us so aware of the charity that we made a donation... Isn't that the point of her next adventure... So we thought to save her the trouble of doing said activity we would donate directly.

Probably won't be hearing from her for a while....

So what if someone who is not “rich” decides to do something for charity? Likes walk from uk to Santiago (Camino) something hat could take a month. You wouldn’t sponser them?? I know people who have done these things and left themselves out of pocket in order to raise money!