Am I being tight / arrogant when I get a request from someone to sponsor them for doing a 10k run? Hardly a challenge is it (given their circumstances).

I know this one goes round every few months, but I need to feel better about the high horse I’ve chosen to sit on today

exactly how high is this horse? wouldn’t want to cough up if it’s just a wee one

Depends on whether you rate their chosen charity as you’re really choosing whether or not to give money to charity rather than sponsoring them (as such).

Not as bad as people who ask you to sponsor them to go trekking in the Andes. Bollocks to that.

Would anyone sponsor me for my insane idea of riding MM next year solo?

I don’t ask people to sponsor me to do things and the things I do are generally ‘bigger’ than the requests for sponsorship I get.

Are you being tight/arrogant… depends…

i dont sponsor people if i think they’ll enjoy the ‘challenge’. what happened to the good old days of sitting in a bath full of poisonous shards of broken glass and rotting fish for 5 hours… i’d happily give someone 10p an hour for that… but for exercising/sky diving etc, nahhh.

(i still sponsor friends to do stuff if i like the charity)

I’d judge it by the cause they’re raising money for. If you sympathise then the challenge is just a minor point.
If the challenge was on the limits of this person’s ability would you refuse to pay up if they failed?

You know what really annoys me? People who do stuff like parachute jumps for charity. The exchange usually goes something like this:

Them: Please will you sponsor me to do a parachute jump for [insert charity here]?
Me: A parachute jump? Wow, that’s really cool. I’d love to do that. How much does it cost?
Them: It costs one hundred pounds.
Me: That’s a lot huh? How are you paying for it?
Them: Er… It comes from the sponsorship money. You have to raise a certain amount.
Me: Right… So what you actually want is for me to pay for you to do a parachute jump, is that right?
Them: Well… Sort of. But it’s for charity!
Me: So why don’t I just cut out the middleman and donate the money straight to a charity, or spend it in a charity shop rather than paying for you to do something really cool? Or hell, I could forget the charity and just do a parachute jump myself. I’d LOVE to do a parachute jump y’know.
Them: But it’s for charity. CHARITY!
Me: Fleh!

It’s a difficult one, especially when it involves something relatively easy or kids. I must get at least one or two a week and feel very mean when I don’t cough up.

Depends more on the cause as to whether I will or won’t and I generally think it’s much better to make regular payments (which I do) and allow the charity I choose, because they mean something to me, to benefit from the tax advantages.

I find saying no amazingly easy. And strangely satisfying. Am I a bad person?

The ones that we get frequently, that really wind me up, are the ‘we’ve decided to ride LEJOG/Triathlon/etc and so would like you to donate 3 x carbon road bikes, 3 x helmets, 3 x pairs of shoes and 9 x full cycling kits.

What???? No mention of selling the kit afterwards and donating the money to the charity.
Why would you choose to do something you dont have any equpiment for, its like me saying I’m going to do a charity skydive and writing to Boeing to ask for a plane!

Believe it or not we get A LOT of emails along those lines.

Have had the same problem in the past until I decided to sponsor/donate to one specific charity only, and i do whenever asked or have a ‘tin’ rattled in front of me.

The last person I sponsored to do an event I knew was going to be a significant challenge for them, that and their chosen charity was one of the less well known ones.

I would’ve paid regardless, I guess I thought that the charity in question was more deserving as hardly anyone had heard of the charity or the cause it targeted.

Then on the other hand I sponsored someone last year for growing a moustache….

The ones that get me are when i’m asked to sponsor some rich kids gap year trip to the third world for some ‘charity’ task. Its middle class begging.

The one I frequently get ‘rattling tins’ at the door is the Air Ambulance. When I refuse and they ask why, I tell them that I don’t believe it should be funded by charity and it has never been available when I’ve really needed it and the money could be much better spent in a lot of cases the vast majority of cases on more land vehicles.

The ones that get me are when i’m asked to sponsor some rich kids gap year trip to the third world for some ‘charity’ task. Its middle class begging.

I’d rather sponsor a polar bear.

I just had a spate of people asking me to sponsor them for various Walk For <insert charity> type things. Most of the walks are a mile or two! FFS.

Give it five years and we’ll be sponsoring people to get on the bus.

😆 @ TSY

Air Ambulances – nice idea but I think its carp when they get despatched to deal with something that normal ambulances / MRT could do. For instance sending an Air Ambulance to collect someone with a broken collarbone off the top of Cut Gate is hardly the best use of a valuable resource. The person wasn’t in a great deal of pain and the MRT would have been there quick enough.

Woody, thats the one I sponsor! Two good friends woulnd’nt be here now without them.

If it’s someone I don’t like doing something that might kill them and a charity I’m happy to support, I’ll dip in.
If she’s hot and it involves some jumping up and down or running in a sweaty tee shirt, I’ll go along to lend my support.

Then on the other hand I sponsored someone last year for growing a moustache..

how did she get on with that?

Would it be wrong to ask for sponsorship for the BHF bike ride that I’m doing this weekend here! 😉

Cheeky Gittism

All you with sponsorship fatigue, and those of you looking to give a challenge more meaning, what do you think of this:

http://www.thedonation.org.uk/ donate by doing

the concept

a brief overview of why we think this is an idea worth running

The need to get people leading more sustainable lives is pretty urgent: if everyone lived like we do in the UK, we’d need three planets to sustain us.

And a staggering 42% of the UK’s carbon emissions are a result of our individual daily actions. That means almost half our country’s footprint is in our control, yet no one seems to want to do anything about it.

That got us thinking, and we realised…

1. People prefer hugging friends than trees:

Most people aren’t motivated by doing green things to ‘save the planet’, they have busy lives and more pressing priorities. Like supporting their friends.

2. We love group hugs more than anything:

We humans are social animals; we like to support our friends together, as a big social group. Our individual actions often seem so insignificant, but together they add up to create a meaningful impact. Sponsorship plays on this in a fantastically powerful way.

3. Money doesn’t solve everything:

Unlike most other charitable causes, the environment needs our action more than our money. Individuals are at the root of the environmental solution, not research institutions or international aid organisations, and we simply need to act.

And so we built The DoNation to use the social and fun nature of sponsorship to motivate the masses to do little green things, together, without parting with a penny.

Here on The DoNation doing green stuff is about supporting your friends, helping to push them through their challenge – it’s not about saving the planet single-handedly.

And who knows, maybe it will help people realise that doing green stuff isn’t about hugging trees and wearing hair shirts, it’s just a pretty fun, healthy way of living.

“Every time I turned the dial on the washing machine (always in a hurry) I thought of Hermione and pictured her pedalling away and moved it back to 30 degrees.” – A past Doer

At work, asking for sponsorship, verbally or by phone, email etc. is banned – it got crazy so the boss banned it.

Every year we vote on what 3 charities [from suggestions] that will benefit from collections, company social events etc.
We can opt to donate each month from salary with the company matching it.

Two good friends woulnd’nt be here now without them.

I’m not saying that they don’t save lives, they undoubtedly do and as such shouldn’t have to rely on charitable donations.

But……you have to weigh up the costs/benefits and other available resources eg. RAF, Mountain Rescue, normal land ambulances as to whether it is an appropriate use of funding and resources. My ambulance service obviously didn’t think it was.

I’ve had the air ambulance in attendance 4 times in the past few months and I can honestly say that it was not required and made no difference to patient outcome in any of the cases. The one time I have requested air support and REALLY wanted it due to a Doctor being onboard and the nature of the patients injuries, neither chopper was available.