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Charity nagging — 41 Comments

1. Oh boy. You are on target Neo. And once you contribute to one, your name is obviously provided to multiple others.

   As the appeals arrive day after day from the same organizations that have been ignored for months, and even years (public TV in Washington, DC still sends them three years after we moved to California), you get the sense that these must be very lucrative businesses.

   Just today, I received a mailing envelope from a nameless veteran’s appeal that was so large the post man had to bring it to the porch. Inside there were numerous gifts, including a ball point pen, and an over sized calculator, personalized with my name. I know these “gifts” were themselves likely contributed, and/or cheap at that. But, huh? I look at it as a guilt device. Well, I don’t mind feeling guilty. Maybe the worst are the ones that include a nickle or dime. My conscience can’t be bought that cheap. Send a quarter for pete’s sake.

2. neo,

   A warm and heartfelt welcome to the domain of curmudgeonhood! [ s m i l e ] I wandered in quite a few years ago, never left, and I am very much at home here.

3. I get those too, So far I’ve managed to drive away two that showed up after a donation to a veteran’s group which I shall not name or donate to again. One was the SPLC; sent back the pre-paid envelope and told them I found THEM to be a hate group. I won’t name the other group, because they gave up on me.

4. As I understand it, a direct mailing campaign only needs something like a 1% response rate to be successful. That’s why they keep sending them out. I just give whatever I wanted to in the first place and enjoy all the address labels and notepads they can send my way (or throw the envelope unopened in the trash).

5. I agree with you about the near daily pleas for donations. I have decided our charity will go exclusively to local institutions, most of which do little or no mail solicitation – our local food basket, our local arts council, the yearly Thanksgiving collection of food, clothing, household items for those in need, my church, and a few others that seem deserving are it. No more gifts to those who wind up wasting thousands, if not tens of thousands or more, of dollars on unwanted gifts to donors.

6. For many of these organizations, yes, just a 1% reply rate is successful; but, for me, I stop giving when I realize that the amount I give is simply wasted on trying to get me to give more.

   That ends my giving to that charity ever again. Clearly, they feel it is better to waste MY money on hounding me than putting it to good use.

   The ones that I find real ironic are the ones that state “without your help we will close our doors.” To which I can only think, well, if you’re going to close your doors without my donation; better to close now before I waste any money on you.

7. I only give money to organizations that I think are quite effective in solving our most serious problems. Neo Neocon comes to mind. I don’t give to Wounded Warrior Project because I suspect they have figured out very skilled, tear-jerk actors can rake in the money. They must have high revenue to keep paying for the ads.

   I give to David Horowitz Freedom Center, Judicial Watch, Center for Immigration Studies, FAIR, Californians for Population Stabilization and Scott Walker.

8. Neo, things like you mentioned seem to bother me more in the middle of winter when I have 18 inches of solid sunshine in the yard.

9. “For faster service enter your account number followed by the pound symbol”, and when a real live person comes on what’s the first thing they ask for? Your account number of course. And when questioned about it the answer is “well my system didn’t pick it up.” What’s that all about?

10. bumsrush:

    Agreed. I always have to give them all my info all over again. Very annoying.

11. Among the worst of them are the political organizations. Once they paint their target (ME);
    they hit with shotguns (approaches), sniper fire, grenades, smoke bombs, daisy-chain letters, laser-printer focused forms, etc.
    It’s an all out assault.

12. Ugh. I’d always figured it was a mix of a prior high-ish donation, combined with zip code + whatever data mining that tells them that we have some cash to our name.

13. I read an article a few years ago where it was stated the head of the Salvation Army was paid around 13K per year for his services. The head of United Way? Over 350K.

    I don’t give to United way at all. Salvation Army? Of course. I pick and choose who i give to, and give cash when possible so they can’t hunt me down and hound me. I also give at the church level and let them do with it as they see fit.

14. I have hand-written notes when giving to a number of charities requesting that they not send me any additional gifts and requests for money. These have been ignored across the board. Each year I fill a folder to overflowing with appeals. I could send letters each day for the rest of my life and not use all the address labels sent my way. So frustrating. There is something to Susanamantha’s point about giving directly to organizations close to hearth & home. We have pretty much gone that direction as well.

15. Yes, I really hate being harassed after writing a check. I have no idea how to stop the calls – not answering them doesn’t work.

    I also give to local charities through my church, such as canned foods or other requested items (new socks, toothbrushes) that are taken directly to the food bank or homeless shelter in which our church is associated after the Sunday service. Also squeeze in some volunteering at these same organizations. So instead of one big check it’s a little bit each week or two. I know these organizations and I’m certain they use our(non-cash) donations wisely.

16. Glad to know I’m not the only one. This post and comments are like group therapy for me.

    I used to give to several charities each year. In the last ten years I have whittled it down to five or six – mostly those that I know are making good use of the money. Our recycling bin is filled each month with solicitations from many, many organizations. So sorry, no luck with this flinty-eyed old duffer.

17. Which is why, if I give, it is in cash and anonymously. I choose the charity, I know what it does. Industrial charities are completely untrusted, to include my church and the many functions of it. I don’t mind giving locally, but carefully. I won’t give to the uberchurch offerings because I know they are either libtards, who control the money, or they have too much to check on what it is really doing.

    Cash. If it’s too much trouble to show at the office or some other way, perhaps registered mail (that is tracked). Could get stolen, but then, how much money that you give is stolen (within the charity) or otherwise misused? Seems like a lot of charities are just “jobs” for the favored, otherwise deadbeat, wives or husbands of the rich and famous. It’s how they earn allowance when they are married to rich and stingy people? Of course, if you need it for a tax write-off, then it becomes more complicated.

    Cynical? No, absolutely not. Because I am pretty sure most of what I write is true. Endcapped perfectly by their gorilla tactics in hounding those who do give. Leeches.

18. Name ten diseases in the last 30 years that have been cured. Treatments, sure. But what have they cured with all those billions, even trillions most likely.

19. CS is right about political donations. Made me stop giving $ (or even responding) after 2008. Even so, I am still being hounded.

20. A few weeks before Christmas, I asked the director of our local community services organization what items they needed for distribution to the needy. She told me that what they most needed was socks for all ages, toothbrushes, cleaning supplies, personal care items of all types. A trip to Sam’s club later, we were happy to have had some guidance. Ronald McDonald houses and Fisher Nightingale houses also need household supplies. We have taken these items to them also. Check with your local Ronald McDonald house for ideas on food supplies. We were able to furnish breakfast one Sunday morning.

21. The charities make more money by selling your name to other charities than they do from the actual donations. The name and address of someone who has actually replied to a mail solicitation is worth its weight in gold.

22. Yes, they have researched it and the guilt-gift works best.

    Regarding the long ridiculous voice menus, or worse, the voice recognition systems (“Hi! I’m Wildfire!”) I just keep hitting 0. Most systems will eventually send you to a human, although I have found a few that don’t, they just cut you off.

    I got so mad at the Comcast voice loops that I wrote a letter to the president of the company. I had been calling technical support–Internet was down–and the system forced me to listen to an ad for an upcoming wrestling match on TV, or something crazy like that, before I could even enter the support queue. Guess how they responded to my letter? They had someone call me up–that person left a message on my answering machine, and when I called back, yep, I got into a voice loop maze that resulted in a dead end!

    Regarding this:

    “‘For faster service enter your account number followed by the pound symbol’, and when a real live person comes on what’s the first thing they ask for? Your account number of course. And when questioned about it the answer is “well my system didn’t pick it up.” What’s that all about?”

    That one drives me bat-shit crazy, too, but I can give you a general idea why it happens.

    There a lot of call-center technology out there and a lot of different ways to design call-center processes; often the process and the technology are out of synch. Often the process is never designed properly, often it changes over time in ways that conflict with the equipment. For example they buy this box that captures your account number and sends it through to the agent, and designe the phone menu to assume this, but then they change the front end process and never changed the phone menu. At Comcast I think they pass the number through if you’re talking to sales or accounts receivable, but not if you’re talking to tech support.

    I like JJ’s comment. Group therapy, indeed!

23. Looks like no one mentioned using web sites like fake charities or snopes to check which are scams and which do great humanitarian work.
    My favorite charities are Heifer International and the one I volunteer for, Full Circle Trade and Thrift in Flagstaff, AZ.
    Check out http://www.fullcircletrade.net to see what a real charity should be.

24. The other thing I hold against “Charities”, is how much is used in “Administrative Expenses”, and therefore how much isn’t use for actual charity. Charities that waste your money, summarize the gold plated life that the officials life, including one that the military had to deal with. CFC (United Way) had a CEO that was living the playboy lifestyle, off the donations of people who were expecting the money to be used to help others.

    As others above have noted, keep your donations local, so you can know what is being one with them.

    — Steve

25. While I’m complaining, let me take up a slightly related subject: those long voice ads you are subjected to when you call a drugstore for a prescription renewal, or your cable company for some help, or really just about any business these days.

    The company that supplies my natural gas has a very good system. Instead of making you wait on the phone and subject you to either elevator music or voice ads, it takes your phone number, and a service representative CALLS YOU. This means that you do not waste time while waiting to be connected with a service rep. Even better, most of the time I get a call back within five minutes.

26. I have read that when you are in a voice loop, you can get an actual person to talk to by pressing 0 zero- for operator. It has worked for me- at least part of the time.

    My brother helped design his company’s automated voice answering system. I told him- not entirely jokingly- that when he asks St. Peter to be let in, his role in that automated voice answering system will be taken into consideration.

27. I never give to professional charities for all the reasons you all have cited. I dread the days that I have to answer the phone at work. These charity organizations engage in harassment, and I swear that some of the solicitors sound like convicts.

28. IMHO, you just need to take a deep breath and ignore the repeated requests. All depending, I donate to a handful of charities twice a year. Some three times.

    I also agree with DOOM. Over the past 30 years, I don’t believe anything has been “cured”. I am not talking about ham. Much of the medical industry is corrupt. The FDA is bought off by the lobbyists. It’s a damn shame.

29. Exasperated:

    ” . . . I swear that some of the solicitors sound like convicts.”

    Ha, they could very well be convicts; so many telemarketing firms today, in the US anyway, now use convicts in work programs because they are cheaper than other employees.

    So, why wouldn’t charities use them as well?

    As far as others have said about the United Way – I do not, nor will I ever, give to them. The reason being that they do NOT distribute money evenly to their charities. They have determined ahead of time what percent each charity under their “umbrella” should receive.

    So, even though United Way allows you to specify that your donation go to a specific organization they will then give less of the “general funds” (i.e., donations for which other donors have not stated specific charities) to that charity that has already received “enough.”.

    Stated another way. Let’s say under the United Way’s umbrella there are three charities that they take donations for. Now, let’s say I give $100 dollars and say that it all goes to charity A. While another person say here’s $100 and it goes to charity B.. A third person give $100 and doesn’t say which charity it goes to. Most people think that the third person’s donation will be divided evenly among the three charities.

    BUT, no, United Way will not take the third person’s donations and give $33.33 to each charity. Instead they will, using their own “accounting system,” decide that charities A and B already received enough from the first two donations and give MORE of the third person’s money to that third donation.

    So, if United Way had already determined that each charity should receive “equal” donations that means the third person’s donation will 100 percent go to organization C; which may not have been the third donor’s intent.

    While there is nothing illegal about this; it does seem somewhat dishonest to me. And good luck trying to get a straight answer from them if you ask them about it.

    Oh, and as others have said the United Way keeps a percent for “overhead” for themselves.

    The bottom line is give directly to an organization and avoid going through the United Way.

30. As a couple of others have noted, charities that use direct-mail fundraising trade or sell mailing lists all the time, and all of them make money off doing so. A reliable donor is a valuable resource for them. You would not believe how advanced and elaborate their tracking systems are.

    SOME charities will pay attention if you tell them that you do not want your name sold to anybody else. Some, sadly, will not.

    SOME charities will also pay attention if you tell them to put you on their do-not-contact list. Some, sadly, will not.

    Also, some (probably most) charities periodically purge their mailing lists, removing people who have not responded in a long time or who have never responded. Even though a small response rate is all they need to make money, they still save money if they can avoid sending letters that they are sure won’t be answered.

31. http://investmentwatchblog.com/many-of-the-largest-charities-in-america-are-giant-money-making-scams/

32. Many of the charities who have solicited me, I’ve discovered on investigation, have officers/management who receive annual salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions of dollars, hardly what I would expect the head of a “charity” to accept or receive, so I no longer donate to them.

    Many other charities, local TV exposes have uncovered, do not do what they say they will do with donated clothing and other objects and apparently, in many cases, few of these donated items ever make it to those they are supposedly helping.

    On bringing a food donation to a local food bank, I noted that those arriving to receive donated food–and there was a lot of it, most first quality food still in its cans, containers, or wrappings, and apparently donated by local supermarkets and restaurants–looked quite healthy and well dressed to me, and that several people who were pulling up to get their grocery carts full of donated food did so in newer and more expensive SUVs than I was driving.

    Better to give money, clothing, or other basic necessities directly to someone who you know is really in need, rather than to donate to an organization that spends 40-50% or more of the money donated on management salaries and advertising, or to a charity whose criteria for giving you have no control over.

33. It IS about money. Without money, there is nothing. So….pick a charity that you can get behind and give directly. Giving through a professional money raising service takes a large chunk.. So, if nothing else, give to the Salvation Army. They spend some 80% on delivering services to their “clients”. They are everywhere. Take a check down.

    A friend was, in his own words, a crack head. The Salvation Army, and Jesus got him off crack. He now works for the Salvation Army and a part time Baptist preacher. (Where I met him.). Be careful, choose wisely, and give directly.

34. I had to listen to a long spiel from my pharmacy whenever I called to refill a prescription until I discovered a trick. I immediately hit the # button and it goes right into the menu. Saves a lot of frustration.

35. Yep, the Salvation Army.

36. I agree, The Salvation Army. Wounded Warriors is another.

37. What really pisses me off are the all too frequent “pledge weeks” put on by our local PBS stations, during which PBS apparently airs some of its best shows, shows that are not aired as part of their regular programming.

    Then, as part of the torture, there are also the tired reruns of the “Music of the 50s, 60s, 70s,” etc., quite often “sung” and “played” by some of the originals–and when these ancients totter onto the stage to lip synch or croak a few bars, it may be welcomed “nostalgia” for some, but for me it’s just cringe-worthy.

    Moreover, if you want to watch the good shows you have to endure the seemingly endless interruptions, and the very often self-satisfied yapping of examples of the hyper enthusiastic “elite cognoscenti,” hawking DVDs of these shows at ridiculous prices, as incentives to contribute to a poor-mouthing PBS that already enjoys an enormous amount of tax dollar funding.

    Feh.

38. Hi there,
    This website may be helpful: get human dot com.
    This is a crowd sourced website with information on how to cut through the automation to reach real humans. Good luck!

39. Walla Dalbo: “On bringing a food donation to a local food bank, I noted that those arriving to receive donated food—and there was a lot of it, most first quality food still in its cans, containers, or wrappings, and apparently donated by local supermarkets and restaurants—looked quite healthy and well dressed to me, and that several people who were pulling up to get their grocery carts full of donated food did so in newer and more expensive SUVs than I was driving.”

    After I retired I wanted to do some charitable work. I volunteered at the local food bank. I soon noticed the same thing you did. I brought it up with the managers. They told me it would be unethical/un-Christian to question anyone’s need.

    I also worked for Habitat For Humanity for about four years. I occasionally drove by our older projects. What I saw was distressing. Many of the houses and yards were not maintained. I realized that a lot of the charitable work is just feel good stuff that isn’t really changing much. It’s good to help those in real need, but difficult to know who those people really are. It’s also difficult to teach people that taking care of their things -houses, autos, clothes, etc. – and being responsible for their own survival is a good thing.

    At least the Salvation Army occasionally helps someone get their life back on track. They also feed a lot of hungry people. That’s why they’re my #1 charity.

40. My parents lived in the Comcast service area (MI). When Dad died, I tried to get the name on the account changed to my mother’s. Nope, I had to submit the death certificate. When she died, I took both death certificates to the Comcast office. The service person was amazed – she said it was not a requirement and quickly took care of canceling the service.

    But… when I submitted the change of address to USPS, I started getting charity requests and catalogs for my parents. Some of them took a while to get to me, ie several years, indicating that someone sold the name and used the USPS address update service.

    When I get one of these letters, I call the organization and “tearfully” explain that Dad died in 1996 and Mom in 2008 and could they please take their names off their list. Works every time.

    For other catalogs or requests to my name, I usually use the 800 number and call. I tell them that I’ll never use their service or donate to them, so they are just wasting money. But, the key is to be nice and cheerful. That usually stops the junk.

    Final effort is to stuff everything in the prepaid return envelope and mail it back to them with a request to take me off their lists. They eventually get the hint.

41. The charities are using their tax free status to fund a scam. Mail scams are forbidden by felony law. But charities that just happen to lose money that gets donated to them? A convenient slip there.

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