Worldwide there are millions of different charities, many of these do small local events, there are some however which occur nationally, or even internationally in each country. In the UK for instance there are around 17 national running events, some for no more than a mile. Each of these has swathes of members asking for sponsership, many asking the same people, who will feel guilty about not sponsering a person, especially if they have already sponsereed somebody else.
But I think I have got ahead of myself. What is sponsership? Initially it used to be a way of raising money and awareness for a charity by doing something hard, something special or in some cases something stupid. However it was something rare, it was not common and it was difficult. The person running would have to put a lot in, whether they ran a marathon or climbed Mount Everest.
In recent years however the charities have, at least in my view, started abusing this. They have started doing nationwide ‘runs’ that range from 1 to 5 miles, neither of which is hard to achieve. Of course the reasoning behind this is simple, the easier it is, the more people will do it, the more money will be raised. It does not take long for you to be inundated with requests from people asking for money.
Now I am not saying that charity is a bad thing, I have several subscriptions set up and do sponser people in events. However as the running season begins I have already had 7 requests from people running various runs, three for one mile, three for three miles and only one person running 5 miles. Now each of these has been sponsered for at least three pounds, the 5 mile one has been sponsered a minimum of £5. If I put lower than these I would obviously looka cheapskate, but by sponsering each one the minimum anyone else had then I would be looking at a cost of around £30. Bang this ontop of my subscriptions and suddenly im looking at quite a large bill to foot for a lowly office worker!
I hate to say it but the charities are to blame for turning sponserships from something that helped a good cause to something that many people dread. We find that giving to charity is more of an obligation than a charitable act in itself, something that defies what the charities are founded on.
When I was younger I quite liked doing sponsered events, I would, with great zeal go and collect signatures and promises of payment from the surrounding neighbour hood. At the time I failed to notice the slight wince in their faces as they opened the door to yet another schoolchild from the same class asking for money for the exact same thing.
With the coming of the internet things have become even worse, requests for sponsorship are now being delivered electronically. While this is an aid to convenience it now also means that people will ask for money from people they barely know. In an even more entertaining stance many just take the money instantly, not waiting to see if the sponsored event is nifact completed.
However there is light on the horizon Several websites now make the donations 100% anonymous, allowing peolpe to donate what they want to who they want without the social pressures involved with conventional sponsorship schemes. Hopefully these things will take off in the near future!
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