Bad friends!

[benjaminty]

Something has got my goat. I recently undertook a challenge as part of a team. One of the stipulations of entering said challange was that we raise X amount of money.

Now we did manage both the challenge and to raise the required amount, but for some reason there were quite a few of my friends / colleagues that just didnt sponsor me.

Which leads me to this question:

A. Are most of my friends and colleagues flakes?

B. Am I simply not as close to people as I think?

C. Are people just too skint nowadays?

D. Was Oxfam not a good enough cause to peoples hearts?

If a friend or colleague of mine is looking for sponsorhsip I don't think I have ever turned them down. Really what is a tenner to anyone? It all adds up right?

This thread is not a means of getting a pat on the bag .. I feel quite agrieved that I bust a gut and people can't be ar5ed to go on line and make a donation which takes 5 minutes.

So for all of you that have done charity based sponsorship .... how well have you faired and what's the best way of getting the mooolah? I've got to do better next year

[Brendan]

Could be that many people already make their own private contributions to a chosen charity and therefore don?t feel the need to make any more to all the other worthy causes that pop up every 5 minutes.

[Strawbs]

It seems to me that you are assuming and expecting everyone that you asked will actually sponsor you, I guess in a nutshell its their choice if they decide to sponsor you or not and you have no right to then get uppity about it if they dont.. It could have been for many reasons which are all private to the individual..

Do you really want people to sponsor only because they are worried how you will react when you dont see their name with an amount next to it!!?? What a hollow sponsorship drive that would be.

I think you have done a great thing for charity, dont spoil it by getting all hectic afterwards..

[*Bob*]

I would expect there's an Equilibrium of Annoyance at work here; with people annoyed they didn't get sponsored on one side, and people annoyed at always being expected to provide sponsorship on the other.

[Ant]

I think Brendan's hit the nail on the head. It's so easy to set up charity sponsorship pages online and send off requests for donations that I seem to get hit up at least once a month. I'm not that rich and I can't afford to drop a tenner every time someone I vaguely know decides they want to cycle backwards up Kilimanjaro wearing a pink tinsel wig and then parachute back down from the summit, or whatever it is they've decided to do.

I choose instead to donate money to a charity that means something to me. It's not a big charity and it needs all the help it can get, so I'm happy to support it over something like Oxfam or Breast Cancer which already have quite a lot of cash.

[VeryBerryCherry]

I have to agree with Brendan a little on this.

Some of them may have be selfish/tight/skint Benjaminty, which s fair enough. That's their karmic bag to deal with.

However, I used to work in an office where there was some charity fundraising going around every other damn week and they were pretty much mandatory. Now that got my goat. Some days it could be some child charity, which I do support or some donkey orphanage, which to be honest, I couldn't give two figs for.

I make my own contributions to charities, which are my choice alone, and many people have their own charities. So what you may think is a worthy cause may not necessarily be someone elses.

I wouldn't get too peeved about it.

[lozzyloz]

Birthdays, leavers and sponsorship. All in the same bag. Some you do, some you can't be bothered with and others you take care of in your own personal way.

I wouldn't read too much into it unless they were close friends with good jobs that you'd known for ages and spent many an evening buying them drinks and telling them how wonderful you thought they were and how much effort and time you were putting into that challenge. If so then drop'em.

[Brendan]

That?s not how you treat friends. That?s how you treat clients.

Now friends you spend long evenings with dodging your round and telling them what a tit they look in that new shirt.

[cdonline]

It may well be that they just didn't want to give to the Charity or to you.

When I've been approached, there seems to be this unwritten rule that people around you will give something and if they don't cough up, there must be some motive behind it. If they expectation is that you are meant to give, then they are not being given any choice in the matter, which can aggravate people.

I also choose to give to Gay or HIV Charities and a very occassional pound or two to other charities.

[Brendan]

I suppose there is also the argument that if someone doesn?t want to give to charity they shouldn?t feel obliged to.

[Annasfield]

Did you have to pay to do this challenge, or did the "sponsorship" go towards the cost? :)

[SeanMacGabhann]

Charity is a weird one for me. The old lefty in me wonders why such obvious targets (pick your own - breast cancer awareness, children in need, etc etc) need to hold out a cap at all - collectively shouldn't we be putting more pressure on our MPs to direct (relatively small amounts) to the necessary institutions

But we are where we are and they do need money so hats off to people who do their bit to help out - as Stephen Fry once said "yes it is like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound, but if you are walking past and a band-aid is all you have then it seems terribly callous to not at least try" - I might be paraphrasing there

And then again - there is the self-congratulatory aspect to so much charity which I think does more harm than good (that's not a go at you benjaminty or madworld74 who recently did a run or anyone else) - I'm thinking of things such as the annual TV events where people go mental for up to a week and congratulate themselves on raising less money (shy of 20 million) than people spend on the lottery in a single week (40 million + in the Good Old Days). Something seems wrong with those figures. I would love it if Wogan adopted a Benjaminty stance at the end of a gruelling day's worth of television and instead of telling everyone how good they were to raise so much , he castigated them for giving little more than spare change.

Which reminds me of this gem:

[ClareC]

Annasfield Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Did you have to pay to do this challenge, or did

> the "sponsorship" go towards the cost? :)

That's always a controversial one.

My ex ran the Everest Marathon for charity, he raised a significant sum and got a fantastic time so achieved two good goals simultaneously. It was only later, over beer, a friend that didnt sponsor him ribbed him about using sponsorship to fund his whims - in actual fact 100% of the money raised went to the charity concerned, he had paid for his entrance, flights, accomodation, in fact 100% of his expenses etc himself, even taking time umpaid leave from work. He was quite put out that that assumption had been made, however, this does seem a common way for charities to "encourage" fund raising. Dont agree with it myself but I suppose they do still get some money. I suppose its OK if the person undertaking the challenge is up front about how much goes to the charity and how much pays for the "challenge".

[RosieH]

I'm with annasfield on this one - what was the challenge?

I don't like being asked to sponsor people to go on a walking holiday or do a sky dive. Why should i pay for their jollies.

That said, I don't like being expected to donate on demand either, even where no holidays are involved.

[PeckhamRose]

benjaminty I think this is a very interesting post and very well put too.

(I felt the same way for a different reason when not many people came to see a play I put on.)

Someone above wrote about "what's a tenner to anyone". When I am flush with tenners, they are indeed not much.

But when life is sh!te and I can't even afford a fiver sometimes, my good friends know not to approach me and know me well enough that I will offer when I can.

There are so many charities, so many causes these days, and so many people with big hearts doing great things: we are simply overwhelmed.

However, SOME charities do themselves down, through various reasons.

One I belong to in my opinion wastes huge amounts of money hassling people for extra money!

And I remember on You and Yours years ago, a story about how some charities - upon hearing they were the beneficiary of money when someone had died - hassling the bereaved relatives for that money, too soon after the death.

To answer your question I think it was a combination of (a) and © with - because of my reasons stated above, maybe a bit of (d).

[*Bob*]

Yeah right.

What happened to the good old days, when you had to sit naked in a bath of custard - for four days - with your hands tied behind your back and crows pecking at your eyeballs?

I have a friend who CONSTANTLY goes on sponsored runs around the 5Km mark. But she bloody likes running for god's sake - and even my Gran could do 5k.

[benjaminty]

God no. The sponsorship was by no way used to cover any of my costs. Not sure I'd be comfortable with that if it were to cover them.

Well my aim was to get peoples general opinion and I've definitely got that.

I understand that it may not be the right charity for some people, maybe the 10th sponsorship request someone has received in that particular week or even that they just don't want to... that simple.

That was my first "proper" charity event, I didn't do it for the feeling of self worth... more for the achievement in itself, the charity bit was an added extra really. I just thought I could have raised more, but I consider my expectations for the next event well and truly managed.

Cheers Guys...

[Annasfield]

I did a 10k run a couple of years ago and decided request sponsorship. It was the Nike Run London event and they nominated a charity that could benefit from this event. I selected my own charity, The Stroke Association, having lost my Nan to a stroke the previous year.

My close friends and people who know me well, knew the reasons for my choice of charity and decided to sponsor me. I think sometimes people chose sponsorship for the sake of it and if I'm honest that puts me off sponsoring them as these requests come round all the time.

[lordship_bod]

I have to say that i am a bit of a luddite and if i do sponsor anyone i prefer to just hand over the cash when their done. all this registering on-line and then making a donation is just too much hassle (yes i am afraid i am that busy and i choose to spend my on-line time surfing the net or reading this forum - selfish i know :)

i also get annoyed if the person's chosen charity isnt one that i'm really bothered about and dont want to feel pressured into making a donation just because that person is my "friend/acquiantance"..

p.s all the arguments about being skint i think are also valid - we are not all made of money....

[Keef]

We recently played a "chairty" gig for a couple of girls who are cycling across China to raise money for MacMillan. Now I have always thought MacMillan was a wonderful charity, so was more than happy to suggest it to the rest of the band. It was only on the day of the gig I basically realised that we were playing for beer to a packed house of people that were basically paying for these 2 young lasses to have a dream trip!

That said, hopefully they'll raise a good few quid for the charity too...

[VeryBerryCherry]

Ok, I am going to put my "cynical hat" on for a second.

I love these ideas of bike rides and hikes etc...

However, to me it seems like more sense to use the money they have to gather to enter, or the monetary cost for the resouces to do it, and just give that to the charity and not bother doing the challenge. >:D<

That's not really a proper example of what I mean.

Take these expensive fundraising celebrity auctions. If you add up the cost of the venues, publicity, food, drink, invitations, gift bags... yada yada yada not to mention the celebrities buying brand new clothes while they pawn old shoddy ones.

Can't they just bloomin well use that money and give that to charity instead. I'm sure that would raise more than and of the proceeds of the auctions.

[ratty]

I never sponsor people because A. I work for a charity and B. I am skint! It's never anything personal but I do feel very financially embarrased when I am asked.

A tenner, for instance is the difference between being able to afford lunch at work or not, or the difference between having an hour a week in a pub or not, it's basiclaly my spare cash for the week so I ain't giving it away!

[giggirl]

These are muddy waters. I always sponsor my friends/family/colleagues when they ask; partly because I genuinely want to support their endeavours, but partly because I can afford it. I do have a lot of sympathy with those who can?t readily afford to keep giving though because requests for sponsorship do come thick and fast! I always give more if it?s to a smaller charity and not one of the big, obvious (rich?) ones.

One of my close friends ran the marathon this year to raise money for the Motor Neuron Society. Her husband had died from motor neuron on the day of the marathon a few years back. She?s a stranger to exercise so it was no walk in the park for her. Training was a struggle but she found the fundraising an even bigger hurdle. She had never asked for sponsorship before and she genuinely thought that people would give it up for her, especially as everyone knew that the charity was close to her heart. That just didn?t happen and she did get very down about it all.

[indiepanda]

I definately find I get a lot of charity emails - my department is about 90 strong and any time anyone does anything charitable I seem to get a sponsorship request, and then there are friends outside of the office too.

I generally respond positively especially if someone has taken the time to compose a more touching email that gives their reasons for supporting that charity. However, if it's someone I am not particularly close to and for a charity I don't care about, if they catch me when I am having a busy week, I may simply hit delete.

For some people who drown in emails on a daily basis, another one demanding their attention may be too much, or it may be they can't afford it (let's face it, lots of people are in signifcant debt), or already support charities via a regular convenant that really matter to them. I'm a soft touch when approached in the street and have about 5 monthly covenants to different charities now.

[Jimbob]

i tend to treat all persons asking me for my money equally, be it for charity, big issue, or someone begging on the street, i dont give them any, therefore there can be no accusations of bias. its my money that i work bloody hard for and i dont feel in anyway obliged to give it to someone else, no matter what the cause. call it selfish if you will but at the end of the day its my money end of story.