As soon as I saw the opportunity to go to India, I jumped at the chance! It isn't often you get a once-in-a-lifetime activity like this fall at your feet. The thought of doing something that could be life changing overwhelms you with excitement. All you have to do is raise money and hit a target set. You're doing it for charity, so even better! And it's not going to cost you a penny because 'everything is included'.
LETS DO IT!
And they've got you.... Did you read the small print or were you too exhilarated at the fact that you're actually doing it. You're going to India! Think of all that exercise, the heat, the food, the children you'll be helping to 'unlock their potential'.
£245 sign-up fee, which you don't get back if you drop-out. (You are informed of this).
£62 Travel Insurance.
£52 Visa.
£400 Vaccines.
Transport costs to Airport and back.
Deadlines throughout the year (you don't reach it, you don't go).
The charge BTDonate ask, to allow the charity to use their fundraising pages.
Bet they didn't tell you all of that when you read 'everything is included'....
I bet you didn't even consider these things on your spur of the moment decision....
These are additional costs that weren't in the Welcome packs or the information on the website when you are reading the advertisements to join. When they say that all will be included, this is what I assumed they meant. I had every intention of paying a lot of the additional costs myself so they money I raised went to the charity and not to getting me to India, but it would have been nice to be informed of how much all the 'additional' costs would be, or even that they would be extra on top of the target. It comes as a bit of a shock when you can't afford the prices you need to pay. A lot of people end up dropping out (at the last minute in some cases). The charity keep all the money you have paid in so far but don't need to worry about covering the costs of your flights/accommodation/food/etc anymore, so you have done them a favour and donated money to them, without the need to pay anything out at their end.
20 people signed up to cycle around India with me originally. Everybody paid their £245 upfront, and a lot started to fundraise. 6 of us remain. This means, the charity have been donated a lot of money and don't need to spend any of it on the challenge takers. They know that the amount of people who actually take part in the challenges, will never be as high as the number of people who sign-up initally. They grab you and draw you in, before you realise that you're spur of the moment decision may not have been as realistic as you once thought.
Luckily, I haven't had this problem. I knew instantly that it was what I wanted to do, and I have stuck at it and spent a lot of time and hard work fundraising to collect more than what the target it. £2450 is what the charity say is the minimum you have to have before you are allowed to go. I put my target at £3000 in the hope that I would raise that much. Where I stand at the moment, I have just over a month to go before I take-off and I'm not far from my target of £3000. As well as the challenge I face ahead of me, I am very proud of completing the challenge I have had to face at home by raising all the money. It does take up a lot of time though and this is another way people end up dropping out. They don't realise at the beginning how much time will need to be invested in hitting the target fund. It begins to get closer to the deadline and they suddenly realise that they aren't going to reach it. The charity then inform you that you're not able to go because you haven't reached the required target in the allocated amount of time. 1-0 to the charity.
What I believe the charity should do is, include a link of their website where it tells you all of the things included and all of the things not included. In my personal opinion, I think more people would probably sign up because they would be fully aware of everything. A few people are wary of signing up to something (especially if there is a deposit), without as much information as they can possibly get. This information would also stop straddlers applying and dropping out. the charity would loose out on the non-refundable deposits, but they would gain challenge takers who stay the full-length and end up raising a lot more money for them.
If I had known about all the additional costs I would be faced with, it wouldn't have stopped me from applying. I would have maybe post-poned for a year and fundraised within my own time in order to collect more money and the chance to save up to pay the extra costs, but I wouldn't have ever not taken the challenge. It has been an exciting journey already from the day I clicked the submit button and I know that they journey isn't going to stop when I get back either.
I haven't included any names of charities so I am not specifying it down to one organisation, but I have based it around my experiences.
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