We all get those begging emails asking for donations to a good cause. Here’s how to deal with them, charitably.

Spring is here, and with spring comes marathons. And with marathons come emails from close friends/ acquaintances/ people you’ve barely heard of brazenly asking you to give them money for going on a bit of a run. Well, maybe quite a lot of a run. Jeez, who cares how long the run is? You don’t even know some of these guys. They may be your ex-girlfriend’s brother’s former roommate who you met once in 2004. And yet there he is, hand in your virtual trouser pocket, asking you to sponsor him for running a marathon. And if you don’t, you may as well start wearing a T-shirt that reads: “I don’t really care about childhood leukaemia”. It’s a minefield.

The people who flagrantly abuse the all-staff email are the worst offenders. You can see them lurking around the kitchenette like an infestation of chuggers – those professional tin-rattlers you literally cross the street to avoid. You’re now walking the long way around the office, lest your visit to the vending machine cost you tonight’s beer money and a crippling episode of social awkwardness.

Is it possible to do your charitable bit without being a guilt-tripping bore about it? And how do we respond appropriately to increasingly being on the receiving end of these requests? There’s a fine line between being a cheerful philanthropist and a philanthropissed-off curmudgeon.

Don’t pretend you haven’t thought about it. We’ve all thought about it. The whole concept of sponsorship has gone… odd. Everybody knows it. More to the point, everybody also minds it, or mines it, or both. Yet nobody ever says anything.

So, in order to kick-start a conversation we really need to have, let us identify a few of the people you’re already resenting, and explain who to give money, and who to give a wide berth.

Another marathon? Again? Because you did one last year, right? And the year before. Plainly you enjoy it. Plainly you’d do it for fun of a Sunday. In fact, you probably did it last Sunday, all by yourself. So why is this my problem?

Response: Remind them that you’ve sponsored them several times already, before explaining that this year the money is going to your cousin Steve, who is doing it dressed as a deep-sea diver. “Because that’s actually quite a lot more hardcore,” you could add, to rub it in.

You never thought Darren would do a triathlon. Nor did Darren. But now he’s sworn to and, really, the whole sponsorship thing is all about him creating the necessary level of social pressure to get him a) over the start line, and b) over the finish line. He’s secretly hoping he’ll fall over the week before and break a leg.

Response: Pay up. You have to. And if he doesn’t make it, offer to donate half to the cause anyway, telling him you can’t pay fully without de-legitimising the whole concept for others. Might even be true.

You’re going to dance for six days? Or eat 50 pies? Or get in the ring with a white-collar heavyweight? Or take part in some sort of completely insane, mud-drenched, military-style endurance test that features obstacles called Arctic Enema and Electroshock Therapy? Oh yes, this is proper charity stuff. Really, this isn’t about the achievement at all. This is a fire sale of your dignity.

**Response: **Sponsor these guys every single time and be cruel about it. “I’ll double the money,” you should say, “if you get knocked out/ hypothermia/ arrested!” Frankly, we rarely get a chance to hurt our friends this much with their compliance, so take advantage of it. Just never let one of these guys date your sister. They’re perverts.

Some want to climb Kilimanjaro. Others will be cycling across Nepal, or sailing – the poor, poor lambs – between Thai islands. “Hmmm,” they have thought to themselves, “will my company give me a three-month sabbatical to, for example, learn how to become a pearl diver in the Seychelles?” Then they have thought: “No, probably not, but they will if I use it as an opportunity to raise money for tapeworms that lodge in the brain.”

**Response: **Tricky. For, as smug as these people might be, tapeworms that lodge in the brain are important. Your best bet is to chat to them about it to get more detail, while turning the conversation around to the local homeless shelter at which your niece works every Friday, all night, for no money, and has to delouse afterwards. And hope that lodges in their brain.

So, there’s a big group of you riding to Morocco, eh? On vintage motorbikes? Like you always wanted to, but couldn’t because your wife wouldn’t let you? Whereas now you don’t need to worry about her because she left you after that thing with your secretary? Oh, just asking. No special reason.

**Response: **Humour them. However much they’re paying out on pristine leathers, it won’t be a patch on their alimony. Plus, one day it might be you.