How many times have you been asked to sponsor someone? Whether it’s a marathon, a bungee jump or growing a moustache, we are asked all the time to give money for a good cause. In return, we promise to say “Well done!” when the race is over, the bungee rope holds or the moustache looks more like Henry Cavill in Mission Impossible than Henry the Hoover after vacuuming the hairs around a barber’s chair. And that’s it. Nothing else needed. Hand over cash, say congratulations. There’s nothing else to do. Because why would you do anything else? It’s a donation to charity. You don’t expect to get if refunded, do you..?

Until a few years ago, I’ve never thought to check up on the sponsored person. I’ve never checked whether someone has ran around London or abandoned their razor. I just pay my money and I forget about it until I see an email saying “Thank you!”

Even if they don’t complete the race, or even start, or if they remain bumfluff free for the next six months, I wouldn’t never go back and ask for my money back. So why am I talking about it now? I’m talking about it because at the weekend I was reminded that when I raised money for driving from Plymouth to the Gambia, and the car broke down on day one – see the race diaries – someone asked for their sponsorship money back.

“I heard you crashed out,” they said when I met them a few days after returning home.

“Well, we didn’t crash,” I said, “the engine just failed. There was nothing we could do. The car couldn’t travel faster than 10mph. We could have kept going but we’d still be driving to Africa next year, if we stayed in the car. We had no choice but to quit.”

“So you don’t finish it?” They asked.

“No, we didn’t finish it” I said.

“In that case, can I have my money back?”

They’d sponsored me £50. Or more accurately they’d sponsored Action for Children fifty pounds.

I thought they were joking so I said: “Would you like interest on that too?”

And they said, in the same tone they would speak to their bank manager: “no, the interest would be next to nothing. I only gave you the money two weeks ago. You can keep the interest.”

“That’s kind of you,” I said but that’s not what I was thinking, they genuinely wanted their money back.

“You can pay tomorrow,” they said, “otherwise I will have to charge interest.” And they weren’t joking when they said that.

And I paid them because what other choice did I have? We had asked for sponsorship to reach Africa and we’d only spent one hour in France before the car broke down. They were quite right to ask for their money back. We’d been sponsored to travel, not sponsored to quit.

That’s why it’s important when receiving any sponsorship request to write back immediately with a lists of conditions for your sponsorship. The first, of course, being that any money gifted is conditional of them completing the event. The second is that interest WILL APPLY if any refund is not paid within 48 hours. The third is that you know a man who will kick their door if they don’t pay.

I guarantee these conditions will mean you will never lose money again when sponsoring someone – because you will never again be asked again to sponsor anyone.