To fundraise for a half marathon?

[tilyougetenough]

I’ve entered a half marathon next spring (I do appreciate it’s a long way off but it’s a very popular one and I wanted to secure my place!), and in order to take part I need to raise £375 for a charity.

I want to do things like bake sales, etc., to bring in some money as I think it’ll be tough to hit that amount without doing it. But one of my colleagues has mentioned in passing that it’s not in good taste to do something like this at the moment as times are tough.

I can’t lie, I do expect the majority of it to come from my family - my parents have promised £150 already and my SIL has promised some money too. AIBU to try and fundraise, or should I just stick the link on my Facebook page and hope for the best?

Ignore the colleague - no one is forcing them to donate!
£375 isn’t that much really, especially when your parents have already pledged £150. And good on you for doing a bake sale rather than just expecting donations 😊
My partner did the marathon last year with a target of raising £1,700 - he actually got the majority of it through JustGiving but also did a bake sale at work (and one colleague baked some cookies for the bake sale in lieu of giving him a donation which I thought was lovely).
Ultimately, remember that anyone is entitled to say no! Some of our closest friends didn’t donate, completely up to them!
Good luck!

Well in my opinion your last sentence sums it up perfectly - can’t afford it then they’ll need to take a chance with the ballot or not participate. Running the London marathon is hardly a basic human right is it, and as PP have pointed out there are a lot of other local low cost running events they can join instead if the point is just to participate in a marathon. Look, I hear all the arguments about it being good exposure for the charities etc and obviously it works, people donate (whether out of genuine desire or peer pressure) so they are going to keep on doing it, but the OP asked if people would find it in bad taste to fundraise for this and clearly many people do.

Yeah it’s not like I’ll be rattling a bowl around at work everyday and saying they must donate. I was just going to bring some cakes in and say if people want to donate I’d be really grateful.

But where does it stop? You already said people go around asking for some money for birthdays. You're asking for money for your personal project. It's a bit of peer pressure.

Your colleague may have been giving you a heads up that there's people in your workplace having financial difficulties and don't want the pressure to be a nice coworker and donate yet more money. And they're right that times are really rough financially for a lot of people. It might be they're just sick of too many people with their hand in their wallet and would like it to stop. But you've already had one coworker giving you negative feedback about your plan.

This is a personal achievement thing for you, I get that, but I think you should keep your personal stuff out of your workplace. Keep it to your family and your SM.

I've been donating to my organization of choice for decades and they provide direct essential health care services to those that can't afford it. But that doesn't belong in the workplace.

Blimey, what a lot of push back for someone wanting to raise money for charity.

@tilyougetenough has paid for her place, she is now using her participation as a way to raise money for charity. Not as a way of roughing up her friends and colleagues for cash whilst she burns her spare pounds and spits on the poor.

There shouldn't be a problem with it. Having a bake sale and a just giving link on your social media page isn't cheeky. Most folk love a bake sale- cake for £1 or £2 and the glow of feeling like you have supported a charity and colleague? Dead easy way to do it.

I've raised money for two charities in this way in the past, both incredibly important to me, and people were really keen to support me and the charity.

I suspect some PP are conflating the "sponsor me so I can do a sky dive i always wanted to do but it was a bit pricey just to rock up one day" types of sponsorship with "i have paid for my place in a race, would you like to help me feel supported in doing the hard thing by your kind messages and raise money for charity at the same time" sponsorship that OP is doing.

Ooft.

Good luck OP, with training and raising money. 💪

I think it depends. I won’t sponsor people for something that I think is easy for them or that they are only doing it to get a place in a popular event.

I have a charity spot in a HM later this year but as my motive was to get into that particular race and I have just done a much further distance for a charity that means a lot to me I will basically be self funding this one.

To be fair, OP has only paid £20 for a £60 place.

Assuming her intentions are good, and she'll top up her ticket, plus make a substantial donation of her own to this charity so dear to her heart, plus what her family have pledged, then she should be fine.

£40 for fee shortfall, plus say £100 donation from OP, plus £150 pledge from DPs, plus £50 pledge from siblings (assuming 2) only leaves £35 to raise, which surely OP's DH or BF would cover?

Sorry but who are you to tell me to spend another £150 😂

On the whole the office is very happy to do this sort of thing. I appreciate not every workplace is, but we are.

Does asking people for sponsorship really raise awareness of the enormous national charities that are already constantly advertised on TV? I can't imagine there can be many adults out there who have never heard of Cancer Research, the RSPCA, Oxfam and the rest - and know very well what their stated charitable aims are, whether or not they chime with what the individual chooses to support.

It makes a lot more sense if it's a nascent and/or local grass roots cause that many people will not have heard of.

Also I know this will make me sound like an objectionable old curmudgeon to some, but I find the word 'fundraising' a bit annoying in itself. It gives the impression that the money comes organically as a direct result of neutral hard work - such as, say, tending your vegetable plot for many hours and 'raising' lots of lovely fresh veg as a direct result - rather than the reality that it's just asking/encouraging/cajoling other people to give their money. Then, of course, all of the praise and publicity goes to the 'fundraiser' for their 'efforts', with very little recognition of the many people who actually gave their money - maybe not a few of them feeling guilted or pressured into it - who are just seen as incidental.

It's completely different if you're giving of your own time, talents and resources to make/produce things or offer services that you then sell, with the proceeds going to charity - things and services that people actually, genuinely want to buy, as opposed to only buying it 'because it's for charity'.

Well if you don't want to, it clearly shows this is more about you doing a reduced price event subsidised by others, rather than actually a genuine desire to raise money for the charity.

Put your hand in your own pocket rather than expecting others to pay for your desire to run a half marathon and your desire to donate to charity.

That's my whole point.

How do you judge 'happy', though? Is everybody proactive and all taking their turn to initiate new campaigns; or is it just that people do hand over money and don't moan about it? If the latter, do you think that people would feel confident in saying if they weren't really happy about it, but don't like to stand out or be accused of being mean?

I donate monthly to them. Your presumptive and frankly fucking rude comments have done my head in. Just because that’s how you act, doesn’t mean it’s how all of us act.

First.

Thanks - fair enough, then.

Nobody wants to pay you to do a bloody half marathon. If you want to indulge your hobby then pay the amount yourself.

Bath Half is still open, so you could have entered without making the financial commitment to charity. You can still fundraise, post about, get a charity too, without the pressure of raising a set amount of money.

I think some people think you may have been talking about races which are ballot only, like London Landmarks, London Marathon, Great North run. People Who don’t get in on the ballot will look for the cheapest charity place and then go round friends and family asking for money to hit the target, essentially paying for the place.

Those of us who are regular runners have charity fatigue, from all the people who have been posting non stop about their fundraising in the last couple of months.

good luck with your training, keep Consistent and you’ll get there.

I’d love love love to do London landmarks but I’ve also (for some godforsaken reason) entered the ballot for the London marathon next year.

You don't have to raise money for the charity. You have to pay money to the charity. They don't care where it comes from as long as you pay the minimum amount. The charities buy runner places in bulk from the organisers then sell them off to make a profit. They are basically nothing more than third party ticket sellers.

You aren't putting yourself through the challenge of training for, and running a marathon for purely altruistic reasons, are you? You are having to buy your place from the charity because you want to run a marathon.

You should pay the entry cost yourself. It's not for other people to fund your vanity projects and bucket list activities for you.

I want to do things like bake sales, etc.

Why bother? Unless you plan on baking really cheap and basic cakes and selling them for an extortionate amount, in which case you will irritate your co-workers, you may as well save yourself the time and expense of baking and just pay over that money yourself.

You've got a whole year to save for this and you could ask for money at Christmas and Birthday as well, to put towards it, rather than have people buy you gifts.

It's your hobby, a half marathon isn't that far, I think you should have just found a different less popular race to do or you regard £375 as the entry fee.

How I act? I'd pay my own way, and not try to get others to subsidise my hobbies, nor expect other people to give money for me to donate in my name. I'd put my own hand in my pocket, rather than dipping it into other people's.

Cancer research will have places for both. London Marathon is min of £3K. But, as you have seen on this thread, people get a bit fed up
of donating for people to do prestigious, hard to get into events.

I rarely just donate to people running etc for charity but love to attend their fundraising events/take part in raffles etc!

Agreed. I have no intention of subsidising anyone’s hobby. I have enough of my own to pay for!

I’ve only done the ballot because I genuinely do not think I’d be able to do a marathon. But if I get in, god help me