How to chose a charity

I donate to charities, but the big fundraising events are not necessarily my game, although I greatly admire people who make the enormous effort like my friend Claire who will be doing LeJoG (that's short for Lands End to John O'Groats) on her bike.

However, I thought that once in a lifetime events like the Escape from Alcatraz (and eventually when I run a marathon) are a good enough reason and a big enough challenge to ask people to part with some of their hard earned cash.

The trouble then becomes to chose a charity. There are so many worthy causes: small charities, big charities, local charities, international charities, charities supporting young people, charities supporting old people, charities supporting cats and dog - you name it! All of them do fantastic work and with the cuts in government funding, many of them are badly affected and some of them sadly even have to close down. Theoretically, I would love to support them all, but that is practically not possible.

To get started, I came up with a few criteria myself:
It would be great if it was a local charity, if they supported young people, and if they enabled people to fulfil their potential. Additionally, I consulted the twittosphere and my facebook friends, asked triathletes and runners, and interestingly the majority of people pointed me to a father and son triathlon team - the highly inspirational Team Laws.

Now Team Laws have accomplished incredible feats in competing in triathlons with Ben towing, pushing and pulling Ewan round the course. They are showing that no challenge is too big not be overcome and through their engagement have inspired many people to take on challenges, that might seem just a little too big.

Team Laws are not a charity, but they are supporting MERU who have helped them tremendously in their daily life. So, I checked out MERU and - tadah!

It's a local charity - MERU are based in Epsom, which is pretty much just around the corner.
It supports young people - MERU support specifically children and young people with a disability
It enables people to fulfil their potential - MERU produce custom designed equipment, which is not commercially available to facilitate disabled children's and young people's lives.

And through Team Laws, they even have a connection with triathlon - so what better charity to chose!?

I appreciate every little bit of money that you are willing to give. Showing your support will be huge motivation for me. I have set up a wee fundraising page. On the page, the challenge of the Escape is outlined and hopefully, you will get a sense of how big this really is for me - it's one of those challenges that seem just slightly too big.