Dear charities…

Please stop sending me things.  I don’t mind sending $25 your way once or twice a year, but it bothers me immensely when you repay my donation by sending me unrequested calendars, stickers, notepads, keychains, dog tags, and innumerable other little trinkets.  If I wanted trinkets, I’d just buy the trinkets myself, and it annoys me to think that you’re spending all the money I donated to you towards the effort of getting me to donate more money.  That’s not why I sent you a contribution!  I don’t think I’d even mind if you spent my donation towards attracting new donors, but stop wasting it on me.

With this being the anniversary of hurricane Katrina, I guess I’m starting to get some “annual reminders” from the larger charities we sent money to last year.  Interestingly enough, the charities which send out the most “stuff”, are also the charities which could be criticized for being “90% administration and 10% action”.  In contrast, small groups like Alley Cat Allies just send me a simple donation request twice a year or so, without any fanfare.  It makes me feel like they’re using their donations more wisely.

While I’m on my soapbox, if you’re going to send me personalized address labels, spell my name properly!  I don’t think I have one set of address labels with my name spelled correctly.  The closest I ever get is my first name lacking the hyphen, which is fairly close, but why can’t it be perfect?  Flippy, on the other hand, has a nice simple name so our desk overrunneth with Flippy’s return address labels.

In closing, I don’t want to donate any more money to HSUS, ASPCA, or NSAL until they lay-off the hard sell.  I’ll continue to donate to a number of other smaller charities who do grassroots work.  I’ll also continue to support Best Friends, of course—they send out a magazine if you donate, but you can opt out of receiving it, and I confess that I really enjoy reading it.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/29 at 09:11 PM

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  1. My name is very simple. But I have never gotten a correct address label. For one thing, it ain’t Mr.

    I love Heifer International’s thing they do with buying things like chickens or half a llama. However, I had to call them up and beg me to stop sending me crap. I sent them $20 and I’m pretty sure they would have sent me more than that in bumperstickers etc. I had to call them to get them to stop. But they did stop. Now I just get a lot of emails from them.

    Posted by Georg  on  08/30  at  12:01 AM

  2. I know what you mean. When I donate to Cat Call, which is the local rescue we adopted Salem from, they send us a thank-you note and call it good. Anything else is via e-mail. And like you, that makes me feel like they’re using the money where it’s really needed, which in turn makes me keep them high on my list of places to donate to.

    Posted by Helena  on  08/30  at  04:51 AM

  3. Heifer is a good example of a group which goes overboard with their “thanks”—I forgot about them.  I appreciate the beautiful certificates they send when you donate, but I know it must cost them a lot to do that.  You’re right, though—they’re good about stopping if you request it.

    Helena, I’m trying to be more conscientious about donating to our small local charities.  The big ones know how to grab attention, but I know there are lots of little charities which need my donations just to buy supplies, nevermind paying staff.

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  08/30  at  10:09 PM

  4. You’ve done it again!!
    Honest to doG, I’ve been thinking of doing a post about charities and volunteering, although from a different slant. I was sort of writing it in my head today at work.
    I donate to NPR (because I listen all the time at work) and they do one thing I like - when you pledge at a level that “entitles” the donor to a gift of some sort, they ask if you want to opt out of it. Last time, I did.
    Wahh! Heafer doesn’t send me cool stuff, except for plenty of solicitations and their magazine. I did a lot of my Christmas shopping there last year. I think it’s cute to be able to send someone a share of a water buffalo!
    Ha. My verification word is “products.”

    Posted by Carina  on  08/31  at  05:15 PM

  5. I was inspired to write this entry because a charity which-shall-remain-nameless sent me a really ugly keychain, plus notecards, plus address labels, all in one big package today, and that was the last straw for me.

    I used to work at a station like NPR (it was the competitor, called APR at the time).  I had to organize those horrible fund-drives and do the on-air hustling—the horror!

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  08/31  at  10:04 PM
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