The message will read something like this: “Dear You. I will soon be running naked alongside the Amazon River bank for five days and nights without food, water, clothes or bug spray to support X cause. This cause has personal meaning to me because of X. It would be a big help if you would sponsor me through this perilous adventure. Go to X web site to support me.”

A sincere and hearty ‘well done’ to those who spend a day, a night, weeks, months or even years in undertaking a grand adventure or merely physical exertion in the name of a cause that’s close to their hearts. With all my heart, I wish you the best.

Now let me impose upon you for a minute or two.

Causes I care about spur me to personal action. Take litter, for instance — the detrius of convenience market food, drink and smokes and all-too banal evidence of the world’s casual carelessness about the environment, about both natural and man-made beauty. On Saturdays and Sundays, you’ll see me bagging and binning the swirls of ciggie butts, fag and crisp packets, bottles, and more that get dumped around the beautiful greens of nearby Ely Cathedral. Sometimes I get a little teary. Sometimes I snarl. Sometimes I despair. But have (doggie) bag, will bin. It’s my small contribution to celebrating an adopted home I love.

In a related vein, I’m a recycling fiend. A weekend without recycling is well, less of a weekend,

And I’m ashamed that in these rather recessionary times, I can’t do more financially to help many causes I care about: respite for animals from a cruel world, helping a child get his or her deformed mouth repaired or keeping our waterways clean. But instead of putting my hand in my pocket at the moment, I dig into my closet and donate to my favoured charities items that I might have otherwise tried to sell online, the CD I never really liked, or the shoes that always hurt a little. That’s another way I try to give back.

This is my PSR, my personal social responsibility, and I don’t want a medal. But what I’m uncomfortable with at the moment is a personalised form of charitable bullying that is on the rise. Probably like many others, I am receiving an increasing number of requests via email or personal social media channels from professional individual contacts to support their efforts to support their charity of personal choice or that of their organisation. My response at the moment varies. I either write a (hopefully) polite note to the requestor saying that while I hope they succeed at helping their cause, I have my own causes that I support. Or I simply, awkwardly ignore the request.

When that second request lands in my inbox, it feels like an intrusion — and a demand. The strong-armed suggestion is that if I value this business relationship, I’ll cough up some money.

To me, these requests also suggest that either a) I don’t have a favoured charity or b) causes that are important to me are secondary to someone else’s. I guess there’s also Option C, that someone thinks I make a lot more money than I do. If only.

When you attend a charity event, you know what it’s about. When you’re invited to donate to a particular cause at a business function, that’s part of being in business. When your organisation is hit up for donations, I understand. Where I object is when the request is highly personalised — you the individual are being asked to contribute to an individual.

Swim the Amazon. Write out a cheque to the charity of your choice. Give up your time, your money, your hands and your heart to causes that are truly meaningful to you. Let’s talk about your cause, and I’d be happy to discuss mine with you, if you’re interested. Show me the photos you took while you followed your personal odyssey. We might even find we share some of the same concerns. But please don’t assume that I don’t have a cause, or two, or three, of my own. And also, please don’t assume that your causes are more important than mine.