Hiking 5,000 miles to raise money for the trail associations

Michael,

I've never met you so I can only assume that you're an honorable man until you prove otherwise. However, you certainly can comprehend how it's difficult to understand why I would donate that money to you and trust that you'll forward the money on to the appropriate organizations when I can just give them the money myself and presumably get the tax benefit as well.

You've only been here a month so may not realize that Kickstarter and similar ventures have a checkered past here at BPL. I have contributed before and will again in the future but…

You've only been here a month and have only invested $5 to a Forum membership (correct me if I'm wrong) and are asking me to take you at your word to invest in this otherwise worthy undertaking. That's a huge leap of faith when compared to a member who's been an active member for years (not me) and has contributed to the operational costs of the forum in that time.

How you or anyone else spends your money or uses this forum is none of my business up to the point where you're asking for my money. Once you start asking for cash, you open yourself up to scrutiny. I'm sure this is coming across pretty harsh, which is not my intention, but I guess I'm suggesting that it wouldn't hurt for you to make a more compelling argument as to why we would filter the money through you.

If you upgrade your membership to Lifetime, I'll gladly donate $20 to your fundraiser.

Good luck with this adventure.

What is the difference between a "charity" and a "trail association"?

"I hope to change the dialogue about long distance hiking by fundraising for the trails and how important but underfunded the organizations are."

What is "the dialogue about long distance hiking" that needs changing?
How often will this dialogue take place?
Who is the audience?

[Edit: I'm not taking pot shots here. I really want to know how this sort of thing works.]

So trails are more important than curing cancer?

Here

Donate direct

CDTC

AZTrail

TeAraroa

And my choice for my money

PCTA

I joined one this year.

Great way to spend time in the wilderness with like minded people.

Maybe joining a crew that maintains the trails you are concerned about would be a way of directly addressing the issues you seem concerned about.

I figured if I'm going to pony up my hard earned dollars, I wanted to get out the shovel and watch them put to use.