Originally Posted by khan
Lucky07 just about hit it on the head. I was involved with charity rides in the late 80's and early 90's (yes, much has changed since then) and one of the objectives was to have as low a break-even point as possible. In other words, if you're expecting 500 riders, you want your break-even point (all expenses covered) to be as low a rider number as possible (say by 100 registered riders in my example). The biggest factor that has come into play in the last decade or so, is insurance fees. Rides you could get away with running with $50 donation has doubled or tripled since then, while administration fees (staff, supplies, etc) has climbed only a little. I don't know what kind of support or other expenses are going into rides asking for $K's of donation. But, insurance is a huge part of the equation nowadays.
Those multi-thousand dollar charity rides sometimes include airplane tickets to the start, gourmet meals, multiple nights in a hotel, etc. Getting your friends to pay for all of that is really kind of questionable. Some riders pay for the actual expenses by themselves and then just get their friends to pay for the charity part.
Local one-day charity rides are almost always less than $100, even for big name charities. Some are as little as $25, even with full support (including insurance).