2004-09-14 21:41 | fche blog enun-dorsals curing the walk for the cure
People are familiar with a popular style of fundraising, where people walking, running, biking, or just otherwise sweating for a given interval of time is connected somehow to an influx of cash toward a worthy cause.
Amongst the questionable practices of such events:
- charging a fee or setting a fundraising minimum to the volunteer participant
- driving the volunteers to harrass their neighbours for donations, a practice also familiar to schools and clubs whoring kids out to sell chocolates and trinkets, and to multi-level-marketing organizations
- publishing dizzying motivational propaganda that they are causing the impending end of the disease-du-jour, when in fact they are simply funding research or treatment or administration, with ending said condition as only a long term possibility
To the volunteers, some advice:
- if you just want to enjoy some specific mob exercise event, keep in mind you can likely do so even without participating in the fundraising: just slip into the crowd and off you go
- don’t imagine that there is any kind of market or value exchange happening when your exercise efforts are “paid for” by the sponsors you signed up; they don’t care if you run or not, they may just want you to go away
- consider encouraging your sponsors (and yourself) to donate directly to your favourite cause, and bypass the mob exercise administrative middleman