Is It Selfish To Raise Money For Charity?

Hi. My name is Jill, and I am a compulsive race enterer. I sign up for everything, 5ks, 10ks, half-marathons, 10-milers, marathons, bike rides, triathlons. I won’t let myself do the math, but if there was a pie chart of my expenses, the race fees section would look just like Pac Man. My moment of clarity on this came last month, when I was at the expo for the Philly Tri talking with people from the DetermiNation team for the American Cancer Society. DetermiNation, like other charity teams, trains you and pays your race fees in exchange for you raising a certain amount of money for the underlying charity. At the expo, they handed me their list of upcoming events, and I realized that I had already registered for every one of them.

While almost every event I do either fully supports a charity or has some charitable component, I’ll be honest. I’m signing up mostly because I want to do the event itself. That my race fee is going to a worthy cause is an excellent bonus, but is usually just that, a bonus. I have certainly participated in events primarily to raise money for the underlying charity, e.g., Race for the Cure, the ACS Making Strides for Breast Cancer walk, 5ks for Haiti, for family members of fallen police officer and firefighters, etc. Other times, my motives were split right down the middle, such as my first marathon in Alaska, in which I raised $4,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society via Team in Training, or the MS150 City to Shore Bike ride that I do every year, an event that raises millions of dollars annually toward MS research.

I often feel some guilt about fundraising for these events. While I know the money contributed is tremendously helpful to exceedingly worthy causes, there is still that part of me that feels like I’m asking you to pay for me to do yet another race. That is why for most events I do I just cover the amount myself and don’t solicit additional donations. Even when I do solicit donations for an event, I try to cover the minimum fundraising level myself, so that I feel I am actually asking for donations, and not a race entry fee. Depending on the year and event, however, this is not always possible. Still, there I am again every year, virtual tin cup in hand (thank you, Facebook!), requesting you support my walk/run/ride. I have to remind myself it IS a good thing to raise funds for charity, even if I get something personal out of doing it.

This year is different. I am currently paid and registered for the biggest event I had ever planned on doing, the Half Ironman triathlon in the Poconos in October. I am also registered for the Rock ‘n Roll Philly half marathon in September and the full Philly Marathon in November. I was deeply excited when I signed up for these. Now, I’m ambivalent at best. My change of heart occurred when we learned that my sister, Michelle, who so bravely fought her breast cancer a few years ago, would have to do it all over again, but this time against a metastatic recurrence. Suddenly wasting every spare minute of my time for a 70.3 sticker to put on my car seems stupid and empty. A Half Ironman no longer feels consequential to me, not in the way that spending time with my family does. The fees for the races and supplemental stuff such as hotel rooms and gear are already paid and non-refundable, so I’ve toyed with the idea of doing the events without really training intensely for them.

There is a way to make the races meaningful, however, and it goes back to DetermiNation. I can decide to train for these races in a way that doesn’t interrupt my time with my family, but it means I won’t perform anywhere near my personal best. And I can sign up with team DetermiNation, thereby bringing good money to the American Cancer Society, an organization I admire deeply. So wait to hear from me, because very soon I likely will don my electronic sandwich board and grab my e-mail bell to get you to donate to the ACS. And this time, it really will be for the ACS.