Marathons and Fundraising
Many volunteer groups use marathons to raise money. I can understand big corporations donating money to the runners so people can associate some sort of goodwill with the company which is eventually profitable for the company. I'm assuming the runners wear some sort of label indicating where they got their money from. But why would individuals want to donate money when they know only part of it goes towards the cause the volunteers are running for (which I assume is more than personal gratification)? For the uninitiated, volunteer groups hire the services of a coach (and probably equipment etc). So you begin with a deficit - you have to pay the coach, who is hired for a period of about 6 months - which is not a small amount. So if I donate some money, I know part of it goes to paying this coach's salary. I'd rather just donate the whole amount directly to the organization than to the runner. But oddly enough groups do manage to raise quite a bit of money from friends, relatives etc. And the reason I think this is, is because the donors don't know that part of their money goes to the coach. They are blissfully oblivious to the way these things work. And maybe they don't care. Maybe they donate purely because they want to support their friend/relative and the whole donating for a cause is just a bonus. Who knows?
posted by Arvind at 17:51
2 Comments:
So, it sounds like you are saying "don't donate money to people running marathons, the money is not really going to charity" :-)
Since my wife recently ran a marathon recently, let me elaborate what little I know about the ASHA marathon program (which like Race for the cure, is a marathon program for raising funds that go to charity). In this program, the money that is raised for charity (approx. 3K for a full marathon) is separate from a program fee (around $150-$250 + whatever excess charges come up). The program fee is used to buy supplies, set up aid stations etc, and support coaches. Three professional coaches did support the team but their fees were no where near the exorbitant ammounts you make it seem. In fact, I know that atleast 2 did it on a purely voluntary basis (zero expenses) and had other "high-paying" day jobs. The 170 odd runners who were a part of the ASHA Silicon Valley program raised well over 300K which is now being used to support a variety of charities not just through ASHA but also through other organizations with similar goals such as AID etc. Most of the runners had a say in the projects that they wanted to support with the funds that they generated, and many communicated this to the donors when asking for charity.
Ofcourse, since you were an organizing member for
a volunteer based organization that has also started resorted to marathons (see the link at the end of the paragraph) for raising money, I may, in-fact, be mis-informed, or as you put it, "un-initiated". :-)
http://http://www.aidboston.org/
Its interesting you use the term "volunteer groups" and bring out the issue of supporting people in the
backend. The uneducated way in which I see it is that all these "volunteer groups" are front ends for generating money. These so called non-profit groups have made charity a business -- profits from several undertakings such as concerts, selling wares such as t-shirts calendars etc, are eventually
funneled to a good cause. If this is the case, and generating profit is the motive, how is employing a coach different from supporting Jeevan Saathis, or the costs incurred in organizing a concert etc ? What am I missing out on?
These so called, non-profit, volunteer groups do infact operate like any other business generating revenue from a variety of sources. It turns out that marathons seems to be a very marketing strategy
and is the prime revenue generator for organizations such as ASHA and Cancer Research Foundation ( race for the cure).
So, you make it sound as though the people who pay money or provide support for marathon runners are infact getting fooled into supporting runners for their personal gratification. Good point, who is really getting exploited here ? The donors ? I don't think so. A reason people donate is because they know someone or would like support their friends / relatives, but I was surprised to see how many people donate for a higher reason.
Ofcourse, I expect you know better through your experiences with such charity work. If someone is getting cheated, its the runner -- in the name of charity, these organizations impose (significant) minimum ammounts that each runner is forced
to raise. By definition this is not volunteer based charity. But, if you are ready to accept it as a business---there's no harm in it---its simple cost benefit analysis, keeping in mind profit margins and expected targets. After all, alls well that ends well -- so what if it is a business, the money does go to a noble cause, right ?
Thanks for pointing out that the coaches per se didnt get paid too much. But an overhead of $150-$250 for every $3000 is still quite high in my opinion. Both ASHA and AID operate with a yearly overhead of less than 4% (which is extremely efficient if you compared them to other charities).
As for running charities like a business - I dont have any issues with that as long as they are as efficient and transparent as is the case with AID or ASHA. However, a marathon is different from say a concert. In the case of a concert, the donor is paying money for the tickets to the concert. There is something the donor gets back (sort of like a customer/consumer), which is not the case in a marathon.
And yes, AID has been participating in marathons for a while now. And no, you are not the uninitiated. I was, until you told me about the coaches. And no, I didnt say the money donated to marathons is not going to charity. But I still think its better to donate directly to the volunteer group and avoid the overheads because its no different for the donor!
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