Am I being Mean?

I agree that those requesting sponsorship should both have a good knowledge of what exactly the money will be used for AND make it quite clear as to whether or not they will be self funding.

I had a friend who had breast cancer and afterwards did do a lot of fundraising which included things like walking The Great Wall of China which I happily sponsored her for. Sine then I myself have also had breast cancer, thankfully fully recovered from, and have found since this experience I would rather give direct to the charity so they get the full amount. My friend recently did a hang gliding ride for charity which she also had to raise so much before she could do this. I did not sponsor her.

I had a friend who had breast cancer and afterwards did do a lot of fundraising which included things like walking The Great Wall of China which I happily sponsored her for

I would totally support someone in remission or in between cancer treatments doing something "big"

However, I prefer it when people call things what they are:
A family friend (who suffered massively financially through the whole cancer process) felt she needed a "big" family trip to look forward to after her "all clear". We fund raised in her name, and friends and family and aquaintances and parents at her DSs school etc all raised enough for her whole family to go away on a dream holiday. She was the charity, and her going on that trip was a worthy cause in itself.

It doesn't have to go through the guise of "charity" (when often it's not doing much for charity at all, and often actually damaging the area travelled to).

People respond well to honesty!
It's the dishonesty of these charity trips that annoy me.

While I appreciate travel broadened the mind and charity work is a good thing for anyone to get involved with, my general mantra is, 'I don't support any Foreign Aid charities other than in times of a natural disaster like a tsunami or earthquake'. All countries in the world should look after their own citizens and not expect hand-outs. The UK government seems to continues to believe it should give out hand-outs and, in doing so, it proceeds to neglect its own, not only that it borrows money to do it putting us more in debt as a nation. If you look at the case of Africa, in particular which was supposed to be 'The Cradle of Civilisation'. So, in theory, they should be far advanced than the rest of the world by now instead they are overburdened by excessive population, corruption, poor management of resources and religious restrictions so, I'm afraid, until they show signs of sorting themselves out I have no interest what so ever in giving any of my hard earned money to them.

Lineco 56 thanks for the clarification that how I understand these trips work. Wonderful opportunity for young people to learn new skills, become independent and do something worthwhile. Any opportunity for young people to widen their horizons, avoid becoming parochial and develop into decent human beings gets my vote. Money donated owes to the charity they have to fund their travel and accommodation costs so they pay for their own 'jolly'. Very proud of young people putting others first here or abroad

Where we live it is Cubs and Scouts who do the packing at supermarkets. They get to do 2 days each every year. I always pay £2 for my packing as my sons both went to Cubs and Scouts and got a lot from that experience. I have sponsored children I know who go abroad on charity work trips because 1. I can afford to 2. I think it is good for their personal development and 3. They may be doing something beneficial for others. However if I could not afford to I would say no and pack my own bags.

As an aside! I HATE anyone touching my shopping bags DH is allowed only after intensive training.. LOL

Very proud of young people putting others first here or abroad

but very often, "charity tourism" actually doesn't put the communities / environments they're claiming to help first at all…

And don't even get me started on "eco tourism" …...

Completely agree with you on this one. This appears to be a growing trend. I was recently asked to purchase a recipe booklet to fund a 12 year to go to Kenya. Presumably kids cannot be motivated to do charity work unless they go to somewhere exotic or are they being encouraged by adult organisers, who will need their administrative and travel costs covered.

There is a large amount of charitable work that could be undertaken in this country without incurring high travel costs. These would be equally effective in character building and making youngsters aware of others who are less fortunate.

I would support youth travel for all the reasons listed below if it was "sold" to me as "fund raising for youth travel".

I recently say a "charity trip" advertised, it was one of these where you raise funds.

I'm not kidding it was TWO MORNINGS "working" (i.e. having your hand held by the permanant staff who have enough to bloody do) in a health clinic for children, then the rest was safaris, champagne breakfasts etc…

.. now I can see from the charity's point of view that letting tourists PRETEND to help for two mornings a week, and hosting and literally wining and dining them for the rest of the trip, could still be beneficial if they raise a little above and beyond the expenses towards their medicines or permanant staff…

.. but yet the brochure made me bawk! nobody on those trips was either really emersing themselves in the community (they were effectively USING sick kids to feel good about themselves), nor were they being selfless…. at all…

We owned a business for 26 years and a client/customer once asked my husband to sponsor his daughter, 9and his wife), to go to south of England, (from Aberdeen) to take part in a horse show.

This is a hobby!!! Our own daughter at that time was doing 3 x dancing classes a week, drama class, guitar lessons, ice-skating, hockey, etc, etc,. Can you imagine if we'd asked friends to pay for all our daughter's hobbies?

Same goes for the gap year add ons of "building a school"

Because an 18 year old who did sociology and art at A level is going to be an asset to the building team!

I've heard of these "build a school" charities employing local builders to knock down the gap-year-kids effords in between groups so that the next group can come and have a go (with no building expertise at all)

I don't think you can honestly say that you will be much help to anyone on a 1 week trip. Even when you start a new job HERE you spend the first week being shown the ropes!

They're not all like this of course. I do know young people who have spent entire summers with charities and learnt how to actually do the job and help.

I am happy to support charity but am averse to donating to what amounts to school fund. When my children were small, I would ask close family members to purchase raffle tickets and similar for school fund but would not have expected the wider group of friends or the public to contribute. I would also prefer the children to actually participate in some activity such as a sponsored walk. Packing bags in a supermarket is not particularly challenging!

It's a money making business, plain and simple.

and probably more than if I was sponsoring them to keep silent or anything like that.

I once sponsored DD2 when she was doing a 24 hour sponsored silence to raise money for a horse and pony protection charity.
We all benefited, not just the horses!

However, YANBU.
I will donate to the Scouts who pack at the supermarket, donate to charities regularly and once we all held fundraising events for a girl at DD's school to be able to go on an overseas school trip after her father died. However, later we found out that she had very wealthy GPs who contributed nothing.
Sponsoring someone you know who is doing something for a charity which has helped them and others is one thing; total strangers asking for money so that they can have a 'jolly' in the guise of raising some money for charity (much less than the amount raised) is quite another.

If the scheme works as Linsco mentions then that is fine.
However, our local school used to take a rugby team to Australia annually and we were all asked to fundraise, contribute even if our child was not picked for the team - boys only of course! I question the value of that.

I don't think you're being mean either *Mauriherb". This is just a way for them to finance travelling, however they dress it up.

A friend's daughter collected to go on a sailing boat trip (can't remember the name now?) which was supposed to support a charity in some way. It was a well known thing at the time, and kids joined the ship for a while in various different places. I think that other kids with disabilities had free participation.

I did support her, but she, with others, actually put on a large dinner with entertainment, to raise the cash. If I hadn't known her mother since I was 10 I certainly would not have done this, but at least she showed some initiative....

I have to confess that I never let so called charity supporters pack my bags in the supermarket. I'm not remotely interested in supporting a rugby team to go to NZ or a sailing team to enter some competition or other.

The OP is correct though, any critical thinking or questioning when it comes to anything registered as a "charity" (which FYI, private schools and stately homes can be, it's not always about the "needy") is deemed "mean". Generally.

However the worthy the cause and no matter how close to me the person involved, I would much rather be asked upfront to donate to the relevant charity, rather than be asked to sponsor some charity event.

I quite understand that someone who has had a serious illness and has recovered they want a big event to celebrate it and walking the Great Wall may appeal to them, but please do not ask me to sponsor them, but feel free to ask if I would like to celebrate their recovery by making a donation to a relevant charity and I will.

Sounds like someone somewhere is making 'loadsamoney' from these so called charitable trips ..... Perhaps the companies that organise the trips.

I have an acquaintance who was going on the adventurous holiday of a lifetime anyway, and then asked for sponsors. It wasn't a charity I would normally support, but felt I couldn't say no, so coughed up a tenner. I don't consider myself mean, I have several standing orders for charities and have 2 voluntary jobs.

My neice has done something similar. She and friends raised money in all sorts of ways, bag packing, car washing, garage sales, guess the number of sweets in a jar etc etc. Not just asking for sponsors. Then they went to Africa and had an amazing, life changing experience helping build a school . Ive seen the photos and heard the talk. She is totally inspired by what she saw and did and learnt about how children live in Africa etc. Well worth rge money in my view but the bulk of it went to the African village I believe.
What I do object to is sponsoring someone (adult) to have a great holiday and raising money gor charity on the side. I hate being asked to sponsor people and its wven worse asking for peopleto spinsor you or your children. But it does actually raise a lot of money.

I agree with Stansgrad. Also check out the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project set up to 'improve the distressing working conditions of the porters working on Kilimanjaro'.
They are organised through tour companies but are not always paid by the tour companies.
I hope these people are collecting money to pay the porters too. Imagine doing the work they do and having to rely on tips.

Sorry, that should be Stansgran