I've recently signed up for another run to raise money for a cancer research charity. The way it works (if you don't know) is that you pay a small fee to participate (for which I get a jolly t-shirt and a pack of stuff that makes me feel like a nice soul), and then you ask your friends and family to stump up the 'rest' - to meet a sponsorship target. Since signing up I've received about ten emails telling me how 'easy' and 'stress free' it is now to raise money online but this is where I've discovered that I have a problem.

I want to participate because I like running. I want to support this charity because it's a cause close to my heart. But why should the people I know feel the same way? They don't even get to run! All they get, if anything, is the warm glow of making a charity gift - a donation that, in all likelihood, would not have been made had I not asked.

Do they feel, as I did when I had to ask, a bit irritated? Because to say 'no' makes you look mean, and to say 'yes' means you have probably been forced by politeness to donate to a cause not necessarily near to your heart.

So I'm thinking I will ask a very few people who I know care about this cause so that I don't make my other friends tire of coughing up for (my) pleasure of running. And I will pay the rest. To put this in context, I've already done one sponsored run this year and left it so late to ask for support that it ended up being a really urgent email on the morning of the run. Thanks my lovely friends, two hours later I'd exceeded my target, but most sponsored me just because I'd asked, not because of the cause. I won't be milking them for more now.

On a small scale I am working out my own list segmentation, comm's plan, and thank you strategy - the care you'd take with your own friends could teach some charities a lot about how to communicate with their supporters.

Dawn Law