to sonder about being asked to contribute to someone else's "trip of a lifetime"?

[vezzie]

Yes, probably.

On one of the "is it grasping and vile to ask for money when you get married" threads I contributed a mini rantette about a certain couple I know who did that and somehow guilted me into giving far too much money I could not afford to Trailfinders for their super amazing antipodean honeymoon. I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO GO THERE. So glad you had a nice time. How lovely you look in the pictures. However, it was their honeymoon - a one off - in fact I think the phrase "trip of a lifetime" was used.

HOWEVER now the woman in this couple is sending emails to everyone she knows about raising money to go and do good stuff in Africa. She has a place on an arranged project but needs to raise a fat chunk of sponsorship to get there. At the end of her little spiel about how good it will be for the local community to build all these things they are going to build, she says, "thank you for whatever you can give, it will be the trip of a lifetime."

NOT, you notice, "it will make a huge difference to the lives of everyone who lives there". Basically she has revealed in the last sentence that this is all about her getting to go somewhere exciting and interesting and far away. Again.

So I am feeling really curmudgeonly about this. I am sure - or I hope - this project is genuinely a Very Good Thing. But I am soured to the whole thing by the use of this phrase - for the second time.

I shouldn't penalise the people of this poor village for that. But she is pissing me off.

(This person is not short of a bob or two by the way)

AIBU?

Is she a qualified builder? Electrician? Plumber? Anything that the villagers can't do themselves? Maybe she could offer to pay for the materials and then they could hire (God forbid)someone local and experienced to do the work? Ah but no. Then she doesn't get her funded jaunt to Africa does she? She's taking the piss.
My friend did the Mount Kilimanjaro trek and asked for sponsorship which I gave without issue BUT she had decided that since it was something that she wanted to do she was paying for the trip herself. Any sposorship money genuinely went t charity. Made sense to me because she didn't see her friends as cash cows for her lifestyle.
Your friend is paying a huge premium to go with a company that organises it for her and makes it safe for her to be around the dangerous poor people. If she was desperate to help she'd jump on a plane (paying for her ticket herslef) and rock up at an orphange and offer to pitch in/ teach English/ whatever and ask friends for money for clothes or teaching materials.

donate directly to the charity, i don't think that person deserves money to go on holiday at all - what a cheek!

I'm not usually too keen on the whole telling people to f* off thing, but my god Pagwatch - good for you! Totally deserved.

No, YANBU, and Pagwatch, fab response.

I have been on a charity trek. I walked the 100km through the sahara (did not get air lifted out), I paid for the trip myself, and then raised 2k for the hospital where I worked, and saw the incubator to which I contributed.

If I had just asked people for money for the hospital there is no way I would've made that much. Some of it was just "gifts". I also did bake sales, paid-for dinner parties, raffles etc etc...

I DID have a fantastic time, I did get to do something I will remember for ever, but it also got me off my rear end and doing something which I would not have bothered to do otherwise. I also have always given (since I started working)money by direct debit to 2-4 charities every month, whether or not I was earning, it continued..and have probably given more through that, but it WAS nice to do something spectacular.

I'm wondering if I was a crap mercenary person. Maybe I should go back and email everyone and check that they know I paid for the costs myself??

You are absolutely not being unreasonable. These 'volunteering holidays' rarely benefit anyone other than the person going and the company who organises them and makes a big wadge of cash out of it. I work in the international development industry and could give you a catalogue of examples where ill thought out 'projects' have been of absolutely no use or even detrimental. I certainly can see that such trips help the individual see a broader picture of life and gives them a different perspective on the world once they're back, but FFS she is being cheeky in the extreme to ask her friends to fund this - not to mention massively naive about the 'benefits' to the local community.

Don't give her any money and point her to one of the many articles on how such holidays are not the way to help anyone but herself. Grrr...

YANBU!

As a counterpoint to this, I would to big up a friend of mine who is on the board of a very small charity which works to fund and run schools in Uganda, amongst other things. He has given so much of his own time and money (he flies out there at his own cost, never asked friends for a penny, works really hard and this is in his holiday time when he has a tough day job). He got married recently and instead of asking for wedding presents they asked (if people wanted to) for donations to this charity as they were hoping to build an extra classroom in one of the schools. Needless to say, they were not asking for money for flights or any such thing (they were going somewhere else on their honeymoon, paid for by themselves of course and just a holiday!)

Btw, the phrase 'trip of a lifetime' makes me want to barf. And it is in exceedingly bad taste if you are going to a place where the indigenous population can barely keep body and soul together.

Go Pagwatch...

Vezzie. I am agreeing with the other posters here. I wouldn't cough up. I have been approached in the past by collegues and have thought similar thoughts. ie 'Why the f.. should I pay for you to have a great time If you want to do some good go and help at the Sally Army or night safe or something'

The only time I have contributed to a vanity project was earlier this year when my best friend did a bungee jump. I gave money because I knew he was really frightened and it was a challenge for him to do it and the charity that he was raising money for was a local one that he actually volunteers for and gives a lot of his free time to.

The trips people ask for sponsorship for eg walking up Kili are things that I want to do myself and I am saving up to do.

And these schools/guides/scouts ones are the same!.Loads of spin a bout 'working with street children /orphans etc' and the rality of it is they spend a couple of days doing that (come back to that later) and the rest of the 3 weeks is a holiday.And they always seem to be the rich kids that do it.
The 'work' with the indiginous children was in my nieces case this.The children were bussed to where the guides were staying and taught English nursery rhymes, had a go on a playground and then bussed back again.
I am sure the cost of the coach hire could have been better spend on other things for the poor little mites !

at praise for pags profanity.

I really wouldn't normally swear like that but that really was how much she pushed it. And she referred out loud to money that I had given to a mutual friend. She knew it was supposed to be private but said about it in front of others who knew the recipient.

I am normally like Jamie and think it but don't say it. Or leave the scene and spend ages figuring out what I should have said.

The rest of that term at nursery was funny though .
And I never heard her tell of her trip to China so perhaps others told her no too

It seems that the etiquette does seem to be shifting in favour of stating that whether or not your sponsorship is paying for the people's expenses - a neighbour's fund-raising event was mentioned at church on Sunday, and the vicar explicitly said that he was paying for his own flight and living expenses and that every penny of sponsorship went to the charity, which he and his wife had supported for many years.

YADNBU. that is just utter cheek.

This reminds me of the rich kids who bag your shpping for you in return for money to fund a charity trip for them. I can't afford a holiday of a lifetime so am not funding someone elses!

God no YANBU.

on your behalf.

I resented paying towards SIL's £4000 honeymoon to some dictatorship. (My whole wedding cost that.) She is divorced 2 years later. Probably a touch of in there.

No I wouldn't contribute to this woman. I had a friend who thought it would be a wonderful idea to do some skydiving abroad to raise money for charity. She published it through a forum our friends post on and tried to recruit donations through there

I did grill gently question her as to how much money would fund her trip and how much money would actually go to the charity and she eventually decided it wasnt sucha good idea after all

I suspect that the charities that I give lump sums to direct are probably just as happy with that without all the trip organisation etc

RISPECK to Pagwatch's response.

oh this is a bugbear of mine
studetns trying to get money for their amazing trip to africa in their gap yr
get a job and earn it

even had one directly ask for donations of specific items like backpacks etc

bloody cheeky gits

I dont think you can equate the cubs and scouts with money grabbing people like the OP and Pag have outed.

Cubs generally money bag in their local community for that community.

... or at least they do here.

Sure Ruby - point taken.

But there are people who are far more interested in the trip than the charity and it is nonsense to suggest that that doesn't happen. And finding a way for sponsorship to be translated into direct contributions would be better.

My sons school has people who run or cycle for them but they tend to do it that way around - they want to help the school and find a method to raise money. I am always more interested when the charity is the motive and the person has an association or history with that particular charity

YANBU - I didn't even sponsor DH when he went on a work arranged jolly 3 peaks challenge for Meningitis