To be reluctant to donate to Charity 'Holidays'

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I am always willing to sponsor friends and family for charity. However a couple of friends have recently asked me to donate to an event where they go off abroad and do a bike ride. Although they have said they will be funding part of the trip, the remainder of the donations will go towards their expenses and the actual charity.
To be brutally honest I would rather donate to the charity directly under this circumstance, but AIBU or am I a bah humbug?

I thought that the donations go to the charity and the participant has to stump up the expenses themselves?

YANBU - I'd rather donate direct. I'm sure your friends are trustworthy but some unscrupulous people might stay at the Ritz & send £4.50 to the charity!

Lots of charities do challenges like this

i am a wee bit surprised about donations going towards their expenses as this isn't a usual use of charitable funds

i am doing a fundraising event, and we have a separate entry fee to cover costs

FF - are they doing it independently or via part of an organised trip?

Unfortunately Carmenere - I asked about this, and in both cases the friends are stumping up only some of the money for flights and accomodation only.

part of an organised trip

grrr - this is what gives charities/fundraising a bad name

The charity should not be using donations to fund the expenses and if they are they should be upfront

i think your friends are also being cheeky - they should pay for the whole trip thmeselves so they can maximise their fundraising

I've never understood why charities do this either. I'm less likely to donate to something like this than to do it directly.

What's the deal with Scope, riven?

What does Scope do with all the money it raises, then?

i think SCOPE do a lot of campaigning and lobbying but am not so familiar with their work

i think SCOPE do a lot of campaigning and lobbying but am not so familiar with their work

Riven - where do you live?

your local community foundation may be able to help you out if you need funding for stuff as some of them still fund individuals (or they may be able to signpost you as well)

sorry if this is all familiar to you

I ran the NY marathon for the CF Trust. They supplied the place in the marathon and organised the flights, hotel etc so that we would be together as a team. The deal was I had to raise a minimum of £2k - £500 to cover their costs (I guess they got a discount for bukk purchase of flights etc) and £1,500 for the charity. Dh then sponsored me the £500 of costs to ensure that all money sponsored went direct to CF and NOT to fund my trip to NY. In the end, I raised £5,000 for CF which I wouldn't have been able to do had I not been running the marathon...so not always bad

DH did one of these recently (trek to Everest Base Camp for VSO) and decided right at the start that he would pay the entire cost of the trip himself, regardless of how much he raised (normal deal was that how much you had to pay towards the cost of the trip depended on how much you raised). This was for all the reasons already given -- it was a sort-of holiday and something he'd always wanted to do, so it seemed cheeky to ask others to contribute. He made it clear that he was doing that on all his sponsorship and fundraising materials, and I think that helped.

Message withdrawn

I've been thinking about this all afternoon. It's all very well to say why do the activity - people should just give to the charity regardless. But people won't give to an awful lot of esp smaller charities unless they are given a reason to - it's the only way in which that particular charity's work is being highlighted.

Running a marathon gave me an in to many different spheres to talk to people about CF and the CF Trust that I wouldn't have otherwise had e.g. I went back to my old school to accept a (very large) cheque from the fifth form who had raised money at their end of year ball and I led an assembly on both the story of the marathon and the CF aspect. There is no reason to think that they would have ever thought of CF had I not contacted the school to say what I was doing and would they help.

Since then, because I did that which received quite a lot of local publicity, my name is out there linked to CF and I was asked to do some things by the local media on CF when Gordon Brown's baby was diagnosed. Being heard on the radio then led to other people contacting me and so the story goes on.

Had I not done that (and the many others who ran for CF), there are so many people who wouldn't have heard about the Trust, the work they do or how they can contribute financially. Hey - I wouldn't be here now justifying why charities get people on board to do certain types of activity to raise their profile!

And, just in case you wondered, you can give here