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eldon
10-21-2012, 18:17
Hello,

I was wondering if anyone has ever tried a thru hike for charity or heard of anyone who has? I'm planning a NOBO this spring for my own selfish reasons (ie I want to do it), but I was thinking it might be a way to make some money for a good cause. I think some of the big charities allow you to set up your own donation page through their website which would handle all the money side of things/webdesign type stuff. Then you could just make updates as you went, maybe post it on facebook once in a while to draw some attention to it. I suppose you could whip up some business cards with the link on there and just hand them out to anyone you talked to along the way who seemed interested.

It's not really a developed idea or anything, just something I was thinking about on a plane today. Just seemed like if you can get people to donate money for you to walk 20 miles, they'd probably find a little change in their pocket for 2000 mi.

What are your thoughts?

hikerboy57
10-21-2012, 18:30
umm you might want to use the search function to search the forums about charities, as it usually is a discussion that gets quite contentious. its a nice idea, but you'll probably be able to raise money much better off the trail than on the trail. many feel that people who ask about hiking for charity is just asking for a paid vacation, even when the person askking at the purest of intentions. its a difficult hike to finish without the added stress of raising money.
and deep down you have to ask yourself, is it about the charity or is it about the hike

4shot
10-21-2012, 18:35
yes, it's been done before. Seemed a bit cheesy or commercial imo. If you want to hike, do it and don't make a big deal of it. How do you know that you aren't one of those who ends their hike at Neel's Gap or Gatlinburg or Damascus?

Slo-go'en
10-21-2012, 19:58
I think the best way to go about this is have people pleadge some $ per mile amount, to be paid (directly by them) to the charity once you finish. That gives you incentive to go as far as possible, hopefully all the way to the end. Your also probably best off getting the pleadges from people in your own community then say solely from a web page, since there are so many scammers on the 'net.

Don H
10-21-2012, 20:22
I know someone who raised over $75,000 for charity doing a thru.

johnnybgood
10-21-2012, 20:26
As long as you have the financial resources to take your thru and all donations go directly to a legit charity , then I've got no issues with that.

Research the success vs failures of previous charity hikes if you're really determined to raise money for a cause by using the "search function".

HikerMom58
10-21-2012, 21:28
Great advice so far on your question... welcome to White Blaze! :)

gordondthegrey
10-21-2012, 21:39
You might enjoy the book A Walk for Sunshine, by Jeff Alt.

yellowsirocco
10-21-2012, 21:39
I hiked for a bit with a guy that was trying to thru for charity. The thru hike was not for him, but he stayed on the trail for much longer than he should have because of the charity thing. He was 100% miserable. He burned up all his money and racked up some credit card debt because he needed a zero at every town. That put stress on his personal life and just made things worse.

I say do your first long hike for yourself and let the trail help you explore who you really are. Then if you like it and want to do a second one maybe think about charity.

imscotty
10-21-2012, 22:21
+1 on this. In addition to being a great read, this book contains advice for anyone looking to raise funds for a charity during their hike.


You might enjoy the book A Walk for Sunshine, by Jeff Alt.

Mags
10-22-2012, 00:20
If you are doing a hike for charity, make sure ALL the donations go to charity directly.

Pickle did charity hikes for ALS (aka Lou Gherig's disease) and all the funds went directly to the ALS folks. He personally did not touch the money and all the funds went directly to them. Not one cent went to funding his hikes.

If all the charity hikes were done in such a straight forward and honest manner, there would be little controversy with charity hikes IMO.

eldon
10-22-2012, 06:55
Thanks for the advice so far. You guys have given me a lot to think about, especially regarding some of the side-effects of trying it. Before I posted, I did try a search for "charity" but found lots of unrelated results. I never have much luck with internet forum search engines though so maybe I lack the creativity to re-phrase until I find what I'm after :confused:.

Yeah, if I were to try to include the charity aspect, I would not handle any of the money myself. I don't want the headache, and I want to avoid the appearance of being a scammer. I had looked years ago for something else, and I think the Susan Komen foundation will let you set up a donation page for any event, just like if you were doing one of their walks or runs which is what I would do. That way people could safely donate over what I presume is a an encrypted internet connection. I think you ought to be able to get a proper tax receipt too. So if I were to do it, I'd set it up beforehand and just get some kind of business card printed with the link to it online to hand to people that I interacted with if they expressed interest in donating. It's also a nice way to do it because it is low-pressure for the potential donor. They don't have to shell out money on the spot and can just throw away the card if they don't really care to donate. I don't like pressuring people or being pressured so that fits my personality well. I'd also presumably get a friend to just make occasional facebook updates, probably as I hit various state lines or milestones (if it goes that well). I've got a friend in New York with a 100,000+ person following on Facebook, so if I made it that far, maybe I could talk him into putting a brief snipit on his webpage to link to it which might make some money.

As mentioned though, this is my first time, and I had thought a little about the additional burden of taking on an additional mission when the thru hike is a big challenge in his own right. I go back and forth between wondering if it would inspire me to go further during tough times or whether it would serve as a distraction from my focus on the task at hand. I could also see that if I somehow wound up hating the thru, I would be in kind of a "saving face" rock and hard place situation where I'd probably force myself to keep going until I reached what felt like an acceptable place to quit. I think I would prefer to be able to just quit quietly if I hated it after a month. Also, even though I feel like it would be a good act, somehow I feel like it is dishonest because I'm not really doing it for the charity, nor do I have any really moving story about how a particular cause has touched me. Maybe I feel like it would kind of be presenting myself as something I'm not even if it's for a good cause.

Again though, I appreciate all the feedback so far. I'll have to mull it over for awhile. In an ideal world, I'd complete my thru hike successfully the first time just focusing on the task at hand and maybe on subsequent thru hikes I could incorporate the charity aspect. I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. The reality is that it's very likely that the average first timer will NOT complete their first, and even if successful, there may never be a second. Things to think about, things to think about....

Thanks again all!

barf_jay
10-22-2012, 10:25
You might enjoy the book A Walk for Sunshine, by Jeff Alt.

I am section hiking the AT and read the above quoted book that gave me the idea to hike for a charity. I just started last year and raised $3744 dollars, called mine Hike for Hunger and hike for a local food bank.

Started fund raising about 4 months prior, all turned out well, got a couple of corporate sponsors, talked a local t-shirt place into making 2 shirts for me to wear on the hike.

I would strongly recommend hiking for a charity, it helped me keep pushing when the going got tough! Best of luck!!