IMO, those *-a-thons are the stupidest fund raisers anyone ever thought up. The idea that hundreds of people should get together and hula hoop or jump rope or swim laps or any similarly pointless activity AND use this waste of time & effort to try to extort money from other people in response…ludicrous. The local high school had a dance marathon last year ‘as a fund raiser.’ Oh, yeah, like the rest of us should think, ‘Those poor kids! Dancing away to conquer MS, I must repay their efforts with a donation.’
Bah. You want to do something to fight heart disease or save the condor or fight drugs? Then why don’t you do something USEFUL, something that people will pay you for, and donate your earnings? Because you’d rather so something enjoyable in a group with your friends, instead of doing something as boring as genuine work, I know.
Here’s my response to you and all your ilk: you want to raise money for Charity X, and you want me to support your efforts? Fine. I have a yard that usually needs cutting. I have windows that need washing. In season, I have a billion leaves that need raking. I have bushes that need trimming, gardens that need to be dug, a garage that needs repainting. Pick any or all of the above and I will donate $15 for each hour of honest labor you put in.
And don’t get me started on selling overpriced commercially produced crap, either. Your club builds and sells birdhouses? Fine, I’ll take one. No, two. You’re having a bake sale? Great, hubby likes goodies and I don’t bake much myself. But those candy bars?? No way.
Why do you care what other people are doing with THEIR time? Donate if you want to help the cause, or don’t. Your “mow my lawn” analogy doesn’t hold because now you’ve created an employer/employee relationship or a contractor/client relationship that will muddy the non-profit/donation waters. I cannot donate all the money I make mowing your lawn, because it is taxed. I can donate all the money I make in pledges during my meet-easy-chicks-at-a-walk-athon.
Unfortunately, the crap-a-thons are the only way they are allowed to fund-raise, in most areas. Doing yardwork? Liability issues: what if something is damaged; will you sue? Car washes? Scratch the paint on my Beemer and you’re paying for it, at full price. Wash windows? Fall off the ladder, and you can sue the owner.
Liability and lawsuits. Child-labor. Nothing is as simple as it seems.
Wrong. I said I would DONATE the money to your cause, in return for your doing reasonable work. This is exactly the same as my donating to your cause in return for your swimming laps. The money goes to the cause, not to you, therefore it’s not income to you and no taxes are due on it. As for my budget, the money will then come from my ‘household maintenance’ category and not eat into my own charitable giving.
Probably I should explain. We are not averse to giving to charity. Both my husband and I were raised in families that tithed to their churches. We are non-believers in religion, but we do believe in charity. Each year on March 1st (after we’ve got our income taxes done) we sit down and look through all the charitable requests we have received over the past year, and then split 10% of the previous year’s income between the ones we feel most supportive towards.
But that is charity, done of our own free will, given to the charities that we think are best. We believe in projects to dig wells in Africa, and literacy projects, and AIDS research, and so on. We give them money to support their work, and all we want in return is for them not to waste it on overhead instead – skip the address labels, cutesy t-shirts, stickers proclaiming our charity and all that crap, put the money into good use instead.
When co-worker after co-worker (and, worse, your boss) shows up with the signup sheet to support the charity of their choice because it’s their child jumping rope, well, we’re talking something close to social blackmail. I used to stew over it, but sign on. Now I have decided to refuse all future requests. If they want to give me some literature about this charity, telling me what the money is used for, I’ll add it to my collection for consideration on next March 1st.
Unfortunately, the crap-a-thons are the only way they are allowed to fund-raise, in most areas. Doing yardwork? Liability issues: what if something is damaged; will you sue? Car washes? Scratch the paint on my Beemer and you’re paying for it, at full price. Wash windows? Fall off the ladder, and you can sue the owner.
Liability and lawsuits. Child-labor. Nothing is as simple as it seems.
One of our local Catholic Schools sponsers a Nun Run which sounds hilarious. I don’t know how it works, as I’ve never been to one, just heard about it. But it is a fund-raiser.
Couldn’t be any worse than the 10 screaming juveniles wanting to wash your car that you encounter when you go to the 7-11 for donuts.
Also better than the calls you get on the phone (soon to stop, hope hope) asking for donations to the firefighters, special olympics, etc.
Can I hijack with a horror story about the carwash fundraising kids? One little precious darling actually took the wire brush for tires to my paint job. One of the adults (his dad?) totally watched him do it and said nothing.
My car was no Beemer, but I have stopped taking advantage of those free-range car washes.
I am actually pretty close in opinion with the OP. If I want to be part of a Thon, I sponsor myself and go.
My favorite version of this is the “Bike across America”. A couple of upper middle class kids on break from college think “Hey - we want to do this anyway, but wouldn’t it be cool if we got people to give us money for it? Then instead of camping we can stay in hotels and party and hang out! Plus we can get on local TV! Chicks will dig us! Then if we have any money left over at the end of summer we’ll give it to __________ charity!”
I certainly agree with this. I think a key aspect of the whole ritual is the fact that the people participating are generally kids, so people feel pressure to support them. And if you don’t pitch in, there are probably workplaces where people will mutter about you behind your back. It’s like those “voluntary” United Way solitications that some workplaces use on their employees (discussed by some people in this thread).
You won’t donate crap. You’ll pay the market value for honest labor, and the worker will donate it. It’s not nice to take the workers kindness as your own.
I do find your point amusing, and I agree that it’s all silly, but the fact is that it’s the most productive way to raise money for a charity. If you just say “send us $50”, fewer people will than if you say “send us $50 after Joe walks a mile”. Events create demand. That’s why stores have sales as opposed to just lowering their prices overall. One-time events bring an inrush of excited people. The people aren’t excited about the savings; they’re excited about the event. Same thing with -a-thons. They don’t get excited about saving starving children; they get excited because their neighbor is going to accomplish some personal feat for a good cause.
Well gee StarvingButStrong, I think the whole idea behind the “a-thon” thing is to keep the volunteers engaged in the process. The volunteers are used to coerce the rest of us into forking over our cash.
The “a-thon” does more than entertain the participants. It reinforces their participation by showing them that others are involved in the money requesting tasks.
Lets compare fund raising with and without:
Without a-thon
I went door to door and collected some money to save the red-butted sea owls. I turned in the money. I went home. I don’t know who else went door to door. I don’t think I’ll participate next year.
With a-thon
I went door to door an got pledges to promise a dollar for every time I could belch four octives in a Burp-a-thon. There were a ton of people there. They all collected money and belched. I feel like part of something cool. I met a hot girl who wants to take me to giraffe’s fuck-a-thon. I’m doing this again next time!
Glad to help
Bubba Hey, can I call you Starvingbut for short?
For the most part, I agree. A few years ago, someone had asked me to donate money “for AIDS research”…through one of the local Palotta rides. And where did that money go?
I would not “donate” money so that you can have a blast riding a bicycle on a well-supported tour. And yes, some of that “donation” went to your bike ride:
I am not a stingy person, but I am not rich, and I want my charity dollars to have the maximum benefit. I know that these events get donors who would never otherwise donate, so I won’t condemn them outright. I just wish that there was some kind of way for donors to know beforehand what percentage of their donation was going to the charity itself.
However, I’m a sucker for my neighborhood kids selling candy bars or Girl Scout Cookies. So shoot me for being inconsistent.
This does actually happen - both the church I grew up in and the one I attend now do essentially this.
You donate $X to whatever they’re raising money for and in return some teenagers (or college kids) come to your house and spend the day doing what you tell them to do.
So, I did rake and weed and clean and wash and de-clutter &tc. for charity. It can be done. It’s probably just easier in some ways to do a jump-rope-a-thon.
