Has anyone here used their thru hike to raise funds for a cause? If so, how did you go about it? I've seen various hiking blogs/vlogs that talk about hiking to raise money or awareness for a cause, and I'm interested in doing something similar.

I've saved up what I need for my thru hike attempt this year, but it feels like a selfish way to spend all that money. (To be clear, I adamantly support everyone's right to spend their money however they choose, and I think a thru-hike is a great investment in oneself, but for me personally I want to extend that benefit to others somehow.) So I was thinking about asking people in my community to pledge "a penny a mile" to donate to charity. This way, by setting aside about 15 cents a day, each person would end up donating just under $22. If I could find 200 people willing to do this, I would raise almost $4400, or about the amount I expect to spend on myself. (I've budgeted a little over $5k but hope to finish under so I have a bit of flexibility in the months after the hike.)

I guess my question is, what is the best way to go about this? GoFundMe? Ask people to write checks directly to the organizations I'm supporting? Cash?

My favorite idea is to ask them to literally use pennies and other coins. Our pocket change is so useless here in the U.S. (I've spent most of the last few years in Morocco and Europe, where coins actually have purchasing power, and now that I'm home I'm so annoyed by all this change I get with every transaction when it's next to impossible to buy something with pennies and nickels.) that I think it would be easy and even convenient for people to add some change to a jar every day. So if people want to use their pocket change, I would be willing to go around and collect it after my hike and take it to Coinstar or whatever and then donate it to a few charities.

Does this sound like a reasonable idea? Has anyone else here done something similar before? Thanks for your input.