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.

Thinking about it, the last adult I sponsored didn’t actually ask for sponsorship. He told us about the challenge, his training and the cause, and left it at that. More general conversation than begging. Partly because of this, and because I was impressed with the feat, and he’s a decent fellow (work colleague) I donated.

It depends. My DD participates in all sorts of walks, fundraisers, etc regularly, so I can understand why people won’t donate repeatedly.

On the other hand, I personally have been very put off about fundraisers like GFM ever since I donated to someone very close, who then had leftover money and went on a shopping spree lol. I’m sorry but no.

Bound to be one of the above hey?

I can't believe you give £10 - £20 for a sponsored silence! I'd only give a child a pound or two, for something like that. Pushing teddies around the playground would never have got us a tenner when I was a kid 🤣

If I want to give to a charity I give to them directly.

i had a friend fundraising for her own cancer treatment and some familY experiences as it became terminal. Not a problem -have whatever I have.

another friend keeps texting to sponsor her hobby to raise funds for her club. No thank you.

stop asking other people for their money - it’s rude and entitled.

They are on commission anyway. The next week they will be there asking you for money for a different charity.

I think the poster means why should they sponsor Joe Bloggs to cycle from Lands End to The Tower of London when it means he has two weeks off work and is cycling (his hobby that he does every weekend) with his best mates. He’s doing it because he wants to! To be away from the kids, off work and gets the adulation that he’s raising money for such and such charity.

It depends what you do. If you are just saying "Please give us money which will will give in its entirety to the Centre", then nobody should have an issue with that, and in all honesty, you shouldn't have to offer to do any "activity". If you are saying "We're going to climb Kilimanjaro and we need £1500 to cover the trip and will give the rest to the centre", it's bad form.

I especially hate when people want sponsoring for doing Dry January. WTAF? Sponsor me to not smoke crack. I’ll ace it

I don’t sponsor those absurd foreign jolly things where a load of the money goes on the experience, I mean necessary travel.

It’s in the UK and he has funded his own place.

Running a marathon/swimming the channel/climbing a mountain has no value beyond a personal sense of satisfaction.

The OP's bloke could do a sponsored litter pick, reading with children in schools every day for 100 days, or something else that is fundamentally useful whilst raising money rather than just fannying about (although that can only be speculation as the OP isn't telling us what he's doing).

Exactly, if you've paid your fees, if any are needed for the event, and will show me receipts for that, I might sponsor you. But not if my sponsorship is covering your fees, e.g. for the London marathon.

I don’t think all fundraising is grabby, I have friends whose children have a very rare disease and they do a lot of fundraising but they do things like run a tombola stall at the village fete, do a cake sale or a raffle, ask the school to wear a specific colour on the rare diseases awareness day and get everybody to pay £1 etc. They don’t pick something off their bucket list and then get people to pay them to do it which is where my issue lies. In that case I’d rather just give the charity £10 directly without a % of my money having to go to cover the fees of the marathon/ skydive/ whatever. Incidentally I’m also always happy to donate to a justgiving page or directly to a charity of its shared by parents whose I’ll or disabled children are benefiting directly from it, if you just share the charity donation page to friends/ family with an endorsement about how helpful it’s been for your children on your social media I bet you will get more donations than engineering a sponsored event for the same outcome.

Thanks for your advice as we are new to this!

So do you think I’m better to for example just post a link to the charity rather than actually do a fundraising activity?

I won't do sponsorship on principle anymore.

Just because you see people who can afford to, don't be so entitled as to think they should.

The biggest problem is the number of people we know and how many people want sponsorship. If you say yes to one, then how do you say no to others? Its not just £10 or £20. Its £10 or £20 to EVERYONE who askes. Thats soon gets expensive.

I don't like it because its the guilt factor and this social pressure, so thats why I no longer do it. I get even more unimpressed at people who ask repeatedly and pressure more that once.

I donate to charities I want to, not ones I'm being emotionally blackmailed into donating to.

Don't be coercive.

I genuinely can't understand why your desire to give money to the underlying cause would be affected by how hard a person has trained. "I would save those five children, but I see you've been slacking off on the running machine, so I'll only save four."
I'd honestly like you to explain why the person asking for the money doing a "thing" has any impact at all on your desire to help a cause.

I would say no sorry these days. Money is soon used up on heating bills. I cannot indulge an adult wanting t do something from their bucket list as its probably something they wanted to do anyway. My friends know my feelings on this and don't even ask me. I donate to charities that I rate.

There’s a lot of presumption on here! He has paid for his own place also donated to the charity.

But running a marathon or playing darts or whatever doesn't actually raise money for charity or make a difference in the world does it? The money for charity comes from begging for money from friends, neighbors and colleagues.

Yes, that sounds good! You can say what you're doing but put the charity link so they know they're donating directly. I'd be happy with that..

Very true! I know someone who did this for a job for a few months when they were desperate for a job, and they got £65 for every person they signed up! So these people aren't doing it for the love of the charity when they say 'do you like animals?' or 'do you care about the elderly/the starving people in third world countries.'

This person HATED doing this by the way!

These charities want you to sign up and give your bank details so they can keep milking money from you for further products.

Everyone is sponsored out.

Plus those being sponsored don't always return the favour.

And it's nice to get a thanks from the person you're handing over your money to, rather than tumbleweed.

When I last did 5K for a cancer charity I paid the fee and minimum sponsorship required myself.

I'm picky about my donations now.

Well, in my mind, yes.

However, I can't in any way guarantee that other people wouldn't want you to do something to somehow "justify" their donation; there are several here who seem to think you should.

What I would do is if you do somethnig, make sure it's either something people can clearly see is free (and ideally beneficial, like the litter picking someone suggested) or that you state clearly that you will bear all costs for the event yourself and any money donated will go straight to the cause. Actually say that. Don't expect people to guess it.

Ok, so tell us what the fucken thing is because if you don't, it's because you know the activity is just a free 'piss up' basically. The fact that you are too embarrassed to tell us says that you have a guilty conscience and know the 'activity' is not justifiable.