A hypothetical situation for your consideration:

1) A person has developed skills and is renowned for those skills.

2) An organization asks that person to donate their time to use those skills for the benefit of the organization at a specific location over nine days with at least a day set aside for travel on either end (so 11+ days).

3) The organization promises to reimburse travel expenses (at the minimum).

4) After the person has spent the money to purchase flights and reserve hotels and made plans to be away from their business and their family to make this in-person donation of their skills, the organization says two weeks before the event that they have no money to make the reimbursement.

As that skilled individual who believed that it was appropriate to make that skills and time donation, do you:

a) cancel your flight and attempt to get a refund?
b) find another way to allow those that benefit from your skills to help you recoup that loss?
c) write it all off as a loss and attend anyway?
d) something completely different?

In fact, this is not a hypothetical situation at all. It is happening at international racquetball events constantly.

I’m a fan of B as the best solution.

The USA National Racquetball team ran into this in 2021, and the players ran a successful gofundme to recoup their expenses.

The Mexican National Racquetball team is running into this now, and it has happened to them the last 3-4 international events in a row.

Historically, the US team has benefited from a year-round donation drive run by USAR and advertised in their magazine and on their website. The junior and adult teams need that assist this year as well.

The US team even has donors that will match your donation, doubling its effectiveness. Get involved if you can!

https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Racquetball/Features/2022/July/20/2022-Team-USA-Challenge

Individual US team players (primarily juniors) have also done helpful gofundme campaigns in prior years as sending multiple family members (as is appropriate for juniors) is very expensive. The San Antonio crew has a fund-raiser that is worth supporting in 2022.

https://acrasa.org/fundraiser-junior-worlds/

The Mexican national doubles teams have asked for help this year for the IRF’s XXI World Championships, with separate campaigns for the men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles teams. Get involved if you feel that it is appropriate for you to do so.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/send-daniel-and-alvaro-to-worlds-championships
https://www.gofundme.com/f/paola-and-alexandra-at-the-world-championship
https://www.gofundme.com/f/rodrigo-and-samantha-world-championships