Observer Investigates Charity Challenges

So-called charity challenges seem to stick in the throat of a lot of regular outdoors people - why, they ask, should I give money to someone so they can have a dream holiday, say, trekking the Inca Trail under the thinly veiled pretext of charity fundraising?

Reach For That Halo...

This weekend's Observer Travel section asked much the same question and came up with some interesting points along the way. The article by James Bedding begins by pointing out that charity challenges undoubtedly do raise considerable funds for charities, often from people who would otherwise not be donating. ActionAid, for example, reckon each of their trips raises around £150,000 of which around £100,000 is profit.

Generally the deal is that participants pledge to raise a certain amount for the charity, with a proportion of the amount going to pay for flights, accommodation, guiding and so on.

It also points out that there's now a code of practice which means that charities and their associated tour operators have to be up front about the full costs of the trip which can be no more than 50 per-cent of the total amount raised, which means that before making a donation to a charity challenge participant, you should be able to find out immediately how the money is being divided.

Environmental Impact

The article also points out that the majority of challenges actually benefit UK-based charities working to raise money that will be spent on helping people with particular needs in the UK, but take place in developing countries with questionable benefits for the local economy and ecology.

It's not that black and white of course and some trips make a point of helping local projects along the way, it just depends on the specific charity.

The article concludes that the fund raising side of things certainly isn't a cushy ride for participants and suggests they ask 'searching questions' as you go along.

It's an interesting read, and the full article's well worth a look at www.observer.co.uk.