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?

Sponsorship is optional, ditto attending fundraiser events, buying cakes!

Even a marathon or long cycle ride is often primarily done as a personal challenge.

No, I wouldn’t sponsor anyone to walk to Santiago!

I do mostly agree YANBU, but when I got a ballot place in a marathon I used it to raise some money. Obviously people had a choice whether they wanted to sponsor or not! I did cake sales too, as part of the fundraising. The way I saw it was I had a place and some people might donate money to a charity (a small one, not one of the big ballot ones) that wouldn't otherwise have done so.
The "just give £x000 to charity yourself" wouldn't work, as I didn't have the money myself- I just had a ballot place and a training schedule, so it felt like an opportunity to try to raise some money from people who didn't mind giving a bit.

I donate monthly to certain charities of my choosing, and I keep a bit aside for random office sponsorship of sports events.

I don't like the "sponsor me for a holiday" type stuff though.

I hate it and never donate. I might donate to runners (no idea why I find it different but it doesn't annoy me in the same way) but paying for you to go to China/India/Nepal, fuck off! I have never donated to this shit and I will tell people why if asked. The ones who are "building a school" or "teaching English to orphans" are the worst.

"I know people who have done these things and left themselves out of pocket in order to raise money!"

Yes because holidays do usually leave people out of pocket, in general.

Bottom line is that charities need money and, while I deplore the self-indulgent 'look at me having the holiday of my dreams AND saving the world at your expense' catagory of fundraising, things like the London Marathon do raise funds, and profile. It works better if the runner has a personal reason for fundraising for that charity (and didn't just miss the ballot) and lots of charities are selective about who takes their places.

I understand why people say give your time instead but the fact is that charities need money as well as volunteers, and it costs money to look after volunteers properly. Charities need to pay for boring stuff like audit fees, loo roll and electricity, and your marathon runner might just get this sort of money through the door. .

It depends what they’re doing, if it is to fund an activity then I wouldn’t sponsor, if every penny I give goes directly to a (trust worthy) charity/non for profit then I would.

I used to run marathons and ask for donations to be made towards London Friend as I relied on them a lot when I was younger. I did ask if they could either give money directly to me or screen shot their donation as after the marathon I would match how much friends and colleagues had donated. I didn’t deduct my own ‘fee’ from the amount either.

I’m running the Berlin Marathon for a well known charity on Sunday. I actually suffer from the condition that the charity supports so running a marathon is actually a really big deal. I wanted to run for the charity because they have really supported me in the past. Is this still an issue?! It will be a huge achievement for me to finish and I wouldn’t get a place without the charity as I can’t run fast enough. Unfortunately due to me being slow because of my condition, I can only get into marathons via a charity spot as other, smaller races have a cut off time which I am too slow for.

I am paying for my own flights, accom, expenditure; it’s not a free holiday!!!

The only provision from the charity was the entry fee and a branded shirt. I still have to raise a hefty sponsorship target which is proving challenging and I will probably end up contributing £400-£500 myself.

But I wanted to run a marathon and supporting my charity is my only way in due to the time issues caused be my condition. It’s a charity I support by volunteering also.

If more marathons were accessible to enter and did not just rely on either a crazy time (sub 3 hrs), or a mad sponsorship target (£2.5k), I would happily run other races. Unfortunately due to all the places being offered to charity and very small amount of “ballot” places, it’s nearly impossible to get a place at some really good marathon events. So don’t just blame the people, there is a corporate structure issue too!

This is a grumpy old thread. Sponsor or don't sponsor, but most charities do encourage people to do sponsored events for them and I doubt they would do that if it didn't have either publicity or financial value.

@LiveInAHidingPlace I don’t know about you but I don’t call waking at 5am every day, walking 26k+ a day, getting blisters the size of a 2 pound coin and staying in cheap hostels a holiday!!

It depends, my friend does this but he always pays the cost element himself eg the £1500 for the Great Wall trip, the sponsorship then all goes to the charity. That said my work (not for profit) has suggested I do one of these trips, they know I'm in a difficult situation at the moment (divorce) and my boss thought I could raise money and it would be amazing for me.

"I don’t know about you but I don’t call waking at 5am every day, walking 26k+ a day, getting blisters the size of a 2 pound coin and staying in cheap hostels a holiday!!"

I'd enjoy that as a holiday tbh. Not the blisters to be fair.

If they hate it so much, there are plenty of other ways to raise money. I'm assuming no one made them do it.

I am studying a degree that has a fair amount of rich kids associated with it. We get this ALL the time, so annoying! The most recent one was a student friend inviting me to join her bbq and then charging everyone £25 a head for a "charity fundraiser bbq" when we arrived.

@TheVeryHungryTortoise....bet she took the cost of the meat off any funds raised.

I can see why some are saying they don’t want to sponsor someone for a holiday even if they pay their own expenses but the charity I raised funds for organises the sponsored walks themselves as they know they can raise a lot of funds this way.

It’s a local medical charity with very high running costs and doesn’t receive any government help. It relies on big donations (tens of thousands each) from the weathly people who live in our county and organises many events each year as an incentive to raise this kind of money including the sponsored walks abroad.

I had a friend who did the Peru one and then the Great Wall OfChina one.
He then started raising money for another. Literally couldn’t get a penny together and he had to cancel it. I think everyone just got sick of him.

The local fire service college did a fundraising thing whereby you got to drive assorted fire engines as long as you raised a minimum of £100 sponsorship. I'm afraid I told my friend (not rich) that I wouldn't sponsor her to have 15 minutes driving with firemen. I was astonished people did. That is totally and utterly a jolly for someone - pay for it yourself. I will very happily sponsor someone who puts in proper effort or goes outside their comfort zone.

I had a friend who did one of these sponsored holidays a few years ago. I didn't think too deeply about it at first and promised to help her raise the money. I reckon I must have spent around 12 hrs of work and around £250 from our family on the fund raising.

I think the eye opener for me was the Quiz evening (£20 per ticket, £5 per strip of prize draw tickets) to watch a powerpoint quiz and a lot of time was spent saying how noble this friend was for giving up her time - but no mention of the supporters also donating their time and money.

Then DH decided to trek up a famous mountain abroad. Paid for it himself. Friend says she'd like to do same mountain but for charity. If this does happen I won't be contributing as I'll say our family has already paid for someone to go up it.

I feel awful as friend is a lovely person but doesn't seem to realise that she's effectively getting all this money from her friends and family.

I'll sponsor firsts quite happily i.e. first half marathon or even 10k. After that no, and no asking for sponsorship more than once every couple of years.

byebyebye I did exactly that for my honeymoon. Lots of people do, that’s why there are so many adventure companies such as World Expeditions, Stubborn Mule etc. Just because you wouldn’t want to do it doesn’t mean that other people should have to pay you to do it. I would never want to do an all inclusive 18-30 holiday but I wouldn’t expect anyone to give money to charity if I decided to subject myself to it.

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.

You think? I'm planning to do at least one skating marathon next year and I'm doing it because I think it will be fun, for my own sense of achievement, because despite being in my 40s I damn well want a big shiny medal to celebrate my achievement. It's 100% self-indulgent and I don't think anyone should be expected to sponsor me for indulging in my own selfish hobby.

YABU! All of you are getting annoyed at someone raising money for charity? Who cares what their financial background is? I assume they've probably made a big donation themselves if they have the means

Well some probably do if they can afford it and want to run the London marathon, for example. Whereas lesser mortals have to hope for a ballot place or train really hard to get a "good for age" place where you get a place if you are fast enough, if they are a city law firm partner earning £500K a year they can just pay the £2K sponsorship.

What annoys me with a lot of the charities that have places in the London marathon is that they waste so much money on parties and receptions and massage tents and the like. A charity vest is all you need.

I now tend to donate to smaller charities as I think more of your money actually goes on charitable objects rather than admin and marketing.

I did a work charity bike ride 3 years ago. I spent more money doing it than I raised in sponsorship...although that did have a bit to do with the charities that year. The following year they had more well known charities so they raised more. But then if the money goes into large charity admin what's the point?

If more marathons were accessible to enter and did not just rely on either a crazy time (sub 3 hrs), or a mad sponsorship target (£2.5k), I would happily run other races. Unfortunately due to all the places being offered to charity and very small amount of “ballot” places, it’s nearly impossible to get a place at some really good marathon events

I agree with this for London, but you could for example do Brighton and the sponsorship target is unlikely to be more than £500 at most. And the cut-offs for a lot of marathons is 6-8 hours - I don't know if your condition precludes that time for you. Paris I think is very strict about its cut-offs but other marathons are easier going.

I hate all this, honestly though I don’t know many who just ask for money these days. Unless it’s a local cause rather than a big charity.

If you want to raise money for charity do a bake sale/ an event/ make and sell stuff- it’s far better than just asking for money.

No longer live in the UK, but when I did, you would regularly get people you barely know turn up at your desk asking for this or that sponsorship, very annoying, you would think employers would ban this, as it can put you in a difficy position when you say no.

For example your boss asks for sponsorship, might be hard to say no.

I don't know if you'd include me in this. I did the Moonwalk a couple of years ago for sponsorship, bloody hated every minute. Got roped into it by friends and was an extremely reluctant walker. Everyone I asked for sponsorship though thought I'd have a great time and love it. I didn't.