to consider taking the cost of participating in a charity event out of the money raised?

[juicychops]

just wondered what people thought. i have been looking into different running events such as the great north run, great south run etc and they cost up to £45 just to participate which i think is quite a lot. i dont have any money as it is but would like to consider taking part in some of these runs to raise money.

would it be frowned upon to take the cost of participating, or part of the cost of participating out of the money raised?

your thoughts please...

I wouldn't mind if I was sponsoring someone who needed their actual entry costs covered out of the donations. Now, if they gave themselves a days wages, then I'd be pissed off

Really???

If so, I have to say, I do think YABU.

I know I would be very angry if I had sponsored someone then found out they'd taken money out for themselves!!

The charities really need that money and have an application fee especially so they can cover the costs of organising the races. This means that every penny rised in sponsorship goes to the charity involved. They could quite easily make it cheaper/free to join and take the money out of the funds raised but there would be uproar.

Why not attend a free or cheaper race instead and collect sponsorship yourself? You could then donate all money raised to a charity of your choice.

The Cancer Research races are quite cheap too. The 5k Race for Life costs £12.50 this year (I'm doing it in May) and the Run 10K race later on in the year is usually a similar cost. It's a good cause but not quite as expensive to join.

I think it depends in part on how much you raise. If total donations are £50 I wouldn't be impressed if you took £45 of that for entrance fees. But if you manage to raise £100+ I think it would be reasonable to use some of it (maybe not the full £45) to cover costs.

YABU in my opinion.
Where will it stop, new trainers to run in? Hotel accomodation? Flights to New York to Participate in their marathon?

yabu. I don't want to donate to subsidise someone's fun experience.

I did the Great South Run a few years ago and raised some money, but didn't deduct the entry money for the race, it was about £35.

I am undecided whether this is BU or not, if you raised about £200 and deducted the cost of entry it would still be money the charity wouldn't otherwise have.

Would you also deduct travel expenses?

Agree with Faintlymacabre, if you are going to do this it has to be a large amount of money.

totally unreasonable

heaven help you'd have to pay anything yourself towards participating. No, you go on and use peoples generous donations to make sure you aren't out of pocket.

YABU to do it without informing your sponsors, also not sure about the legality of it. Why don't you contact the event organisers and see what they suggest.

For larger more expensive charity events its quite usual to ask people to make a donation to the cost of participation in addition to sponsorship. That way everything is transparent. Would that be an option?

I have a different take on this. I am anti-charity some of the time.

Don't forget that charities (the big ones) have plush offices in London, their management get a wopping wage,they travel all over the place taking "expenses".

So I think YANBU to take out expenses for yourself if you want to do a race, but have little finances.

Charities on the whole do very nicely thank you very much, all with our generosity.

I would be surprised if I found out someone who I had sponsored had done this.
If it's something you are going to consider you need to be very upfront about it. If I was told in advance I wouldn't mind so much.

hmmmm, tis difficult.

most charities that I know of state that all profits go towards the actual charity they are raising money for.....

YANBU
but like other people have said: tell you sponsors this is what you'll be doing.
I know people who do concerts and recitals to raise money for charity but make it clear that once they've covered the fee for the venue what is left over goes to charity. I think this is fair otherwise they'd end up £100s of pounds out of pocket.
And I think it is great that people want to do these runs for charity.

juicychops - most celebrities DO get paid expenses when they do charity work if not an actual salary. They are not expected to pay for their own accomodation, flights etc. I heard that Bob Hope was notorious for this when he played at charity golf events - a game he loved anyway so he treated it as a freebie holiday with lavish all expenses paid. Not quite what most people would think was a 'charitable gift' of your time.

Also all the costs of organising and runnng a charity event are obviously deducted from the proceeds and lot of that is people getting paid a salary who actually work for the charity. All the services services they buy in obviously get charged for as well so someone is making money there.

Charity is big business - and I have done consulting work for a few national charities so I know what they are really like behind the scenes. Just like any other commercial organisation, out to maximise revenue at lowest cost. Its just they have no shareholders, only beneficiaries.

That said, I feel sort of YABU because I would not feel comfortable with say a friend I sponsored taking part of the sponsorship money for any reason. I would want it all to go to the charity. I knew someone that effectively funded a 'jolly' with mates to travel across the Saharah Desert and dressed it up as 'fund raiser' for cancer relief but in reality very little went to the charity. It was just him and his fairly wealthy friends getting a kick. I refused to donate.

I guess my feeling is that if you like running in events then you should pay for that yourself and if you want to raise some money while you are doing it then that is a separate issue. I would not use the fact that you are raising some money for charity as a 'cover' for getting some free funding of a hobby you enjoy doing anyway.

Perhaps the only really ethical way round this is to explicitly tell people up front that you wil take say £50 for entry costs out of the sponsorship money and then if your sponsors willingly agree to it then I do feel that is OK.

Hope you feel that is a balanced answer to what is actually a very tricky ethical question.

If you cannot afford the fee, you make your sponsors aware, and you are raising a decent amount of money less the fee then I guess not. I would personally pay the fee myself as my way of sponsoring myself.

A lot of running events have 'charity places' - basically your chosen charity pays your entrance fees on condition that you pledge to raise a certain amount of money (for the manchester 10k it's about 200 quid).

If you don't want to pay up front for a race place, that's probably the best way. It's also a good way to get into over-subscribed races at short notice, especially if you choose a relatively unknown / unsexy charity.

By the way, if you don't raise the full amount, I don't think the charity come round and break your thumbs. AFAIK it's a pledge rather than a commitment.

or you could just ask your friends to donate some money to the charity and not do the run at all.

I don't think it's right to just take the money out. Maybe explain to your close family and friends that you are thinking of doing the run, but before putting in the entry in you need to raise money. At least then they are giving you the money knowing what it is being used for.

Or you could try and raise the money another way. Maybe do a car boot sale, you could ask friends for items to sell and use that money for the entry.

yes queenoftheharpies but if the charity has paid for the place and the runner doesn't raise the 'pledge' amount then the charity is out of pocket.

I think it's down to what you tell your sponsors.

If you say "I am raising money to pay for my participation in the GNR and to raise funds for Cancer Research" then ok.

If you just say "Please sponsor me to run for cancer research" then not ok. It implies that all the money given will go to the charity.

I know £45 is a relatively small amount but I am sick of people at work seeking "sponsorship" for some event or other which turns out to be a hike up the himalayas or somesuch, with most of the money raised going to cover their expenses rather than to the charity.

thanks for your responses

i have no problem paying for my own place on charity runs if i can afford it. i paid the £32 this morning for the marathon next year. but i was looking a other smaller runs i could do in the mean time as targets to aim for to help with my training which would also raise money at the same time. but to do a few of these would cost quite a bit in the long run

i just wanted to see what people's views would be if i used some of the money raised to pay for part of the costs. i wouldn't ever consider travel expenses as i think it is my responsibility if i choose a run that is too far for me to afford travel costs. however, if i wanted to choose races that are well known in order to raise the most money they are usually more money to participate in. money to pay for trainers, clothing etc would be rediculous.

so, if i was to consider this then i would state my intentions from the start. what if i asked family's donations to help with participation costs and the rest to charity.

also depending on how you organise the sponsorship, I'm not sure if it would even be possible.

I think sites like Just Giving put all the donations straight to the charity precisely so there is no possibility of people siphoning off a %

sorry - x posted.

I think if you are straight with people then it's ok - it's then up to them what they choose to do.

Or how about asking for entry fees as Christmas or birthday presents? Ultimately you want to do this for yourself so it's perhaps more honest to ask for it as a favour to you, rather than dressing it up as a charity sponsorship.

Then by all means raise money but do it separately.

juicy, have you got a charity in mind or do you just want to use the run to raise money?

if the latter then do as queenoftheharpies suggests and find a charity which has places in one of the runs you want to do. re likely pledge amount, we ask marathon runners for £2k, 10k runners for £250.