To think this is just getting someone else to pay for your holiday?

[poppymango]

A friend is doing one of those big adventure holidays for charity. It's a worthy charity (although I won't be donating as I'm really trying to save right now), but having looked up the details the whole concept has really started to bother me.

You only have to pay a couple of hundred quid as an admin fee, plus the cost of flights (which in this case is super cheap) and then commit to raising a minimum amount for "charity". This is 2-3 thousand, depending on the type and duration of your adventure. However, considering everything that's included in the trip I'm not convinced that much of this will actually end up with the charity.

Essentially, I feel like I've been asked to help pay for someone else's holiday while they get to feel good about themselves.

AIBU?

It’s paying for someone else’s jolly. No way.
someone I know is using crowdfunding to pay for her 18 year old daughter’s jolly in South America. She basically does a few days volunteering then has a holiday.

I think the only way this is acceptable is if it’s properly transparent eg person pays for what it actually costs and then anything on top that they are able to raise, goes to the charity . in a similar way when I’ve run long races for charity, I’ve got myself there and back and paid for the entry myself, then everything on top goes direct to the charity.

Does it ever occur to the "charity tourists" that the money could do a lot more good among the actual locals, who after all know best what's needed, aren't too interested in training up a few westerners who'll disappear in a week or two and may well appreciate the employment?

Admittedly it would mean giving up the jaunt and all those pics for social media, but it's "the cause" they're supposed to be mostly interested in ... isn't it?

Yeah, it's a con really.

I have done a few fundraising 'activities' but I paid the cost in full myself so that 100% of sponsorship went to the charity.

Totally agree.

I agree, OP. Also consider the environmental impact of long haul flights for this kind of thing. They usually tell you it's being offset by planting 50 trees or whatever, but it would be far better not to have anything to offset - the trees don't instantly make it good.

I've clearly misunderstood - I thought that people paid upfront for the activities and all the fundraised donations went to charity.

Sadly not

It's interesting hat you say this because I did one of those volunteer tourist challenges about 20 years ago when I was much younger. At the time I thought it was a win/win situation- I got a holiday to an interesting place and the charity got the help it apparently needed. What became abundantly clear when I was there was that actually all of the volunteers were essentially taking work away from locals - many of whom were actually skilled at what the volunteers we're aiming to do. It also gave the impression that the people who were being helped didn't deserve to be helped by professionals, they should be grateful for whatever a group of unskilled 20 year olds could muddle together.

Everything people are saying on this thread is true and I'm glad people are thinking much more critically about these things than I did all those years ago. After I returned, a colleague asked me if it wouldn't have been better to used the money raised to send me there, instead to pay a local tradesman to work for x amount of months then the charity still benefits and the work is done to an appropriate standard.

A guy from my sports club started a just giving page to raise funds for him to be able to run in races "representing GB" in foreign countries

Lots of sports have what is essentially vets competitions for people that are good for their age....they're nice to do....if you want to/can afford it....but I don't want to fund a jolly for someone else!

My DD can't go on the Guides trips abroad as Guides require you to fundraise to pay for your place on the trips. We wouldn't let her fundraise for a holiday that we could pay for, it just feels wrong and doesn't even have the volunteering aspect that some of these things have.

Luckily DD understands why it wouldn't be appropriate to fundraise for a holiday, so has accepted that she can't go.

Nah can't be doing with voluntourism!

I worked for a charity that did loads of this type of stuff - the 'minimum' donation/amount to raise usually only just covered the commission charged by the commercial company organising the trip/event, with a minimal amount to the charity - barely even covered direct costs like T shirts etc - didn't go anywhere near covering the staff time involved.
more of an awareness raising exercise than serious fundraising.

Idk, I volunteered at an orphanage when I finished school and it was very hard work and the kids were in desperately in need. The sponsorship paid to get me out there but I fully funded my leisure time out of my own earnings!

That’s shit. Kids should not be encouraged or enabled to beg or ‘raise’ ANY money from friends/ neighbours/ parents’ friends and associates. It’s so cringe. You want to go, you earn the money yourself. They can be amazing fun and also do some good in local communities, but they are not charities, they are not regulated as charities and there is no proper legal scrutiny as to where the money goes.

Having said that I did actually donate to one adult friend’s climbing Kilimanjaro thing, as he was doing it for a good solid charity, and had set (and raised) a very ambitious target amount for the charity in question. Way beyond the cost of the trip, and it was personally very important to him what this charity did. Normally it’d be a hard no.

Whether it is self funded and all the money goes to the charity or not a charity is getting money because someone is taking a holiday?

So I would just give my money to the charity direct

It is all very 'look at me' and if people say it's not then how is it any different to 'I am going on holiday so can you please give money to charity'

A woman I work with got quite nasty and aggressive when some of us wouldn't sponsor her precious daughter to go on holiday for charity.

DS2 (24) did a skydive last year to help raise money for the Yorkshire Brain Tumour Charity (DS1 has a GMB4). He had to pay the Charity to reserve his place. Any money he raised went straight to the charity.

He raised a huge amount of money. If people wanted to donate great, if not that was ok too. We didn’t hold a gun to their heads.

That's precisely what it is. You're paying for their massive jolly abroad.

@ohfook exactly. Is a British teenager with zero experience really helping to build a school in Africa? Really?? When there are undoubtedly qualified local tradesmen who would appreciate the work and pay?

I get emails at work allllll the time from people wanting sponsorship for their kids. Nah mate.

Friends sister did it. She said after it was a total rip off and cost a lot of money, and the charity didn't really get that much from it.
I refuse to donate to this kind of thing. If you want to hike the Great Wall of China or go to Machu pitchu pay for it yourself. I donate directly so they get it all. Or donate to raffles and buy cups of coffee and cake to support.

I got the thing at work where someone said 'buy bricks for a charity'
When I asked she said it was really for a religious group that I woud not have a bar of So No. Weasel words

Honestly, the money would have been better spent paying for local staff who would stick around long term, rather than steady stream of young people passing through (terrible for orphaned children with attachment issues and smacks of white saviourism)

Not having a pop at you, and I'm sure you benefited from your experience, but it's good to raise awareness that voluntourism isn't usually as good as it seems

But would your airfare have paid for a professional?

I think if you have some specialist knowledge that you genuinely pass on to people who don't have that skill then go, do the work and enjoy yourself.

A few years ago when a new school for the Deaf opened in Uganda they were in need of a few things. Now I'm a teacher, I'm a BSL user (USL is a bit of a mix of BSL and ASL with a pinch of Kenyan SL).

I wondered if I could help.

In the end I bought a school uniform for a child at the school. The government pays the fees but not all children can afford the uniform.

Yep and what's worse is the martyr type "in doing this amazing sacrifice walking though the Brazil jungle all for charity.

I mean you’re right, but if the charities didn’t offer the trips financed in this way less people would do it and ultimately the charities wouldn’t get as many donations.

Nobody is forcing anyone to donate, just don’t if you don’t fancy it.