Friends not sponsoring dh

[Primmyhill]

Ok, I know times are hard and there are loads of people asking for sponsorship etc but I’m just a bit hacked off. In the past I’ve sponsored friends kids for things like walking around the playground at lunch time, sponsored silence etc, you get my drift but there’s been loads over the last few years and I always give £10-20. My husband is doing a huge challenge in April and the sponsorship has been live for months and I’ve sent the link out twice and not one of them has sponsored him. None of them are badly off - they just can’t be bothered I reckon and I’m pretty annoyed. AIBU? Would you do? I’ll know better next time when darling Henry wants money for pushing his teddy around the local f’ing playing field.

It doesn't feel like it is the charity that matters here - it's the reciprocal support from friends that matters to the op. The tit for tat of I gave to your child's efforts now you should give to my dh's efforts - the charity and the nature of the event are secondary. This is all about someone's feelings being hurt.

Providing a service might be more productive than cycling 100mile. How washing cars for a donation instead - at least you're doing something more productive than ticking off your bucket list.

It's not irrelevant. It matters a great deal what he is doing.

There are people who use charity sponsorship to pay for an expensive adventure activity, so they can do it for free.

In some cases, including the one I detailed in a previous post. The woman was asking people to sponsor her to do a bungee jump. What she didn't make clear, was that the cost of the bungee jump was coming out of donations. Apparently it is not illegal to do this, although some charities refuse to participate if the activity is funded by donations.

The amount of sponsorship money she raised only covered slightly more than the cost of the jump. So, she got a free bungee jump, photos of her "glorious" achievement and recognition for "raising money for charity". The charity got almost nothing.

The issue is that sponsorship is a much more effective way of raising funds for the charity. Which is what charities are obviously all about as they can't provide services otherwise.

You might think that doing the Three Peaks is a waste of time but the reality is that the sponsorship brings in way way way more money than car washing, selling crafts or cake stalls or anything you might consider productive.

And contrary to what's been expressed here, in the real world a lot of people are happy to sponsor friends and family.

I know this because I spend a lot of the day looking at online fundraising platforms.

That's poor management by the charity in question.

I’d be much more likely to sponsor someone who, for example, wants sponsorship for oap garden clearance, house painting, taking underprivileged kids out for day or such like…something that in itself is benefitting people. Not just someone running round in circles or the like…..what a useless time waster. Obviously kids at school who just want a few pennies is fine, but adults doing useless sports etc….sorry, no.

It's really not how charities work.

There would be way too many safeguarding risks for most charities in what you are talking about.

You can't just bring in strangers to work with vulnerable people, even if they're fundraising.

I would 100% drop you as a friend. There is no need to keep entitled people in my life. I ONLY donate to animal charities. My husband only donated to animal, child, and veteran charities. We are comfortable financially and we've had friends who have done similar things as your husband and they've never been tacky enough to ask us for sponsorships. And we've done races for charities and not once did we ask others for sponsorships. Hoping you really pay attention to a lot of these comments and see how ridiculous your requests are. (Also... never assume people's financial status, you never really know unless you're their accountant.)

You chose to make those donations... hopefully because you believed in their causes and not as a transactional friendship. Many people just don't believe in donating to adult charities.

Let's hope they never find themselves in a situation where they might might benefit from the work or support of a charity.

Op donated to kid and adult sponsored activities. So, leaving aside the kid ones are you saying that the adults she supported are happy to fundraise and accept donations but don’t believe in donating to adult sponsored activities?

I don’t believe Op is acting transactionally but it is reasonable to expect that some might support her Dh.

People should expect to say ‘you’re welcome’ sometimes and not just ‘thank you’.

Jumping in here a bit late, but op people might feel like I do. There's a local charity who were set up for a specific purpose. But everything they do on socials, website etc is about raising money. They seem to do lots of "fun" or "challenging" things. But here is the rub, looking at their accounts, 2 years ago they raised £30k. But spent £28.5k doing it.

There seems to be no expenditure on the actual activities/core reason for the charity. There are no details how to attend "workshops" /events for possible users of the service and just a few anecdotal quotes....

in other words people are sceptical....it's one thing sponsoring a 6 year old for a sponsored silence, another to sponsor a grown man doing something he enjoys....

Are you saying that if a friend asked you to sponsor them for, for example, running the London Marathon, that you'd drop them?
Have you honestly never had a single friend who's done a sponsored event and has asked you for sponsorship? Honestly?
And the charity events that you've done. You just donated all the money yourself?

I wonder how the people in all aspects of my life are so different. I've done half marathons / walks and raised a significant amount through sponsorship. Friends / acquaintances from school / university / work / DH's work / neighbours have asked for sponsorship over the years. It's a perfectly normal and socially acceptable thing to do. Donate or don't donate. That's personal choice. But claiming you'd drop a friend for deigning to ask for sponsorship? Now that is weird.

Based on what you've said - that's not a charity I would donate to either.

For every pound spent on fundraising, the charity I work for raises nearly £8. That's a proper return on investment.

The issue is not that people do something they enjoy to raise money. There's no reason it should be intrinsically unpleasant, even if its challenging.

But it should be effective.

Indeed and i love the work Blind Dave Heely (his name for himself) does. But he actually raises money. There is a brilliant comedian called John Finnemore who had a sketch show on radio 4, one sketch was him.asking to be sponsored to go on holiday "it's for the cats". These people have a great life and they may fund it themselves...but they spend a huge amount on fund raising...

I know of a CEO of a large financial organisation who claimed Kilimanjaro...and flew back on a private jet....just think a minute.

It depends on the cause. If children are walking to raise money for the local school, I'm usually good. If your husband is running for a charity I'd rather not support, well...

I sympathize, having been there myself. I just learned to say no, I'm sorry, maybe next time, or, I gave at the office. But it still comes down to the cause.

I don't sponsor anyone except kids things for school.

I totally get why you'd be annoyed that your friends haven't supported your Husband after you've sponsored their children. Children's sponsored events are usually to raise funds for the School or other local things & aren't that hard for a child to participate in so it's upsetting when your Husband has paid to enter something & has asked for donations to support a big charity for a friend & support hasn't been reciprocated. Start a group chat with those not replying saying you've started the group so they can all sponsor Hubby & can add details of their future sponsored events so 'we can all support each other, like we have done in the past for kids events'. Then when they post anything about little Jonny doing a bean bag throw to raise funds for the Summer Fair at School ignore it & don't contribute.

They may start at that but a little research shows there are (IMO) far too many similar charities extant with very high pay to the top level, when many could combine and bring the salary take down. There are always the 'I could earn more in another job' claims but few to vanishing with any history to back that up. Charity world needs a toothy regulator and a big shakeup

more, how many levels of admin and bureaucracy before the cause gets a penny

If you care about that it is worth looking at small local charities.

I donate to a local almshouse charity. They have one administrator, only a tiny fraction of their money goes to that salary. All the rest is used to support the beneficiaries and maintain the buildings. It's almost entirely volunteer run (although of course they employ tradespeople to do any maintenance work etc, but many do it at a discount)

Indeed, and I already do .. Loving Humanity for one ( Period supplies for girls in Africa, India etc))

But how do we find a cure for cancer following that model? Not everything can be done at village level. And not every function of a charity can be performed by volunteers.

Actually, I do think there are too many charities in some sectors.

But the one I work for is a leader in our specific area. I would like to see the various volunteer fundraisers combine - the money would have much more impact.

Re salaries - the foot soldiers on modest salaries way outnumber the CEO's as you might expect

How can you run large effective organisations without employing good leaders? I know of one CEO who took a very large pay cut to move from the private to the public sector. I expect there are others.

Not even just a cure, but advanced diagnostic tools/tech and treatment.

Funding requirements for research is huge and beyond government spending. Increased government funding would probably mean cuts in other areas/social services unless we want to pay more taxes.

I am constantly amazed at the advances and progress made in dealing with cancer and will continue to support research. Paying in small monthly amounts and doing the odd sponsored event (very unglamorous and paying my own entry fee) I hope I’m helping in some way.