I don't know about you but I get completely incensed by these charities that send me cards, personalized notepaper, sticky labels and pens.
I immediately drop them from my contribution lists.
I don't want my donations invested in this craptastic junk.
Apart from anything else, don't they realize I get thousands of labels, 200 cards, at least 50 notepads and 12 pens from their 'competitors' every year?
And then there's the matter of their thinking that I'm a quaint Victorian lady spending my mornings catching up with correspondence with my quill pen and delicately applying the flowery labels to my creamy bond envelopes. Such an inherent contempt for my intelligence chaps my hide.
Seriously, marketers? Talk of a turnoff. Hear me: I will not support you anymore.
But at least now I have a stockpile of stationery unto my 10th generation.
Ugh! I hate them. In fact, I'm not a supporter of charities, at all. I believe they're all only covers for someone to make tax free money out of unsuspecting people. Being a socialist, I believe taxes should be used to provide any necessary services to those who require them. In the US, if you make the mistake of donating to these bloodsuckers, you're immediately on their mailing list and bombarded with a load of useless tat, underneath which is a demand for more money. I don't even open the envelopes anymore. They go straight in the garbage can.
ReplyDeleteI investigate charities really carefully, RJA, and only support the ones that are transparent on their financials. They are usually local with the exception of a few foreign (Stephen Lewis Foundation in Africa comes to mind).
ReplyDeleteHowever I do believe they trade my name off to these other blighters.
I think if we waited for the taxation system to be fair we would be dust in the wind. And the homeless/needy would die.
XO
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I'm lucky that I'm a relatively poor and uninteresting individual to charities and I'm not bombarded by demands and free cards and notepaper. I'm sure if I said yes to one of them, the rest would follow quickly. I donate anonymously in door to door collections. although I hardly know who to give to anymore. I have so little to go around and the need seems overwhelming. I do get confused.
ReplyDeleteNora:
ReplyDeleteI am really careful these days with the charity dollars as my income has dropped substantially but I give what I can.
I also give at the door, like tonight, but for the local school to go away on a trip. At least the students who can't afford it.
I can understand your situation where every penny is evaluated.
XO
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I just got another "gift" from a large national charity and I just give it away. It does piss me off.
ReplyDeleteI donate to local places when I can and to my family as much as possible!
Zuleme:
ReplyDeleteWhat is with these people, do they think we're all morons bought for a few baubles thrown our way?
Or simply guilting us into paying for their "gifting" us with crap we don't ask for or need?
Shyte.
I see red.
XO
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That’s a mistake I won’t make again. I received stickers and a donation card from Children's Cancer Research. It’s a worthy cause I thought, so I sent in a check. The next week, I began receiving stickers and donation cards from Children's almost on a weekly basis. In addition, they sold my address and I started getting requests from 12 other causes. I was totally turned off and made no further donations, but the requests kept rolling in for the next 7 years. One would think the causes would realize this practice results in less donations rather than more.
ReplyDeleteHi Shirley and welcome!
ReplyDeleteIt does have the snowball effect doesn't it?
I think I started mine with Breast Cancer (an awful mistake as I've written about that "charity" under my blog post 'Pink Me Stupid' - see below for link:
http://wisewebwoman.blogspot.com/2008/10/pink-me-stupid.html
I must be on 100 of them now and I've asked to be taken off these lists but it's all to a post office box....and one she goes.
Painful.
XO
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I ignore all those unsolicited charity letters. They (the charities) have it down to a fine art, with envelopes dropping on the doormat on a daily basis from September to December. These envelopes are designed to make one feel guilty about buying gifts for family and friends.
ReplyDeleteI now decide at the beginning of each year, where to direct my few coppers, then it doesn't matter if the Queen called to my door, the money has already gone!
and often the "personalized" stationary has the wrong name like Mr. Marcia Mayo.
ReplyDeleteIf they like to play their little "charity" games, I'll play along and use their stickers on my Christmas card envelopes, but I won't ever send any money to them, any more than I'd respond to a chain letter's demands.
ReplyDeleteThere is one particular variety that sends material in advance and seeks donations as payment for the stuff sent. This is clearly to give the recipient a guilt complex. I paid the first time and wrote to them to say that the next time around if they repeated it, I shan't and I didn't. They have now stopped. Now they are NGOs and they go door to door canvassing and that is even more obnoxious. Students from business schools on summer vacation intern jobs are lined up for these excursions and while it breaks my heart, I tell them no, I dislike being troubled like that. It is no longer charity, it has become big business.
ReplyDeleteGM:
ReplyDeleteAnd I think also that the charities assign this marketing to outside agencies and never follow up, just pay the hefty promotional fees.
it gives all charities a bad name.
XO
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Marcia:
ReplyDeleteYes I can be "mister" as well, LOL and I love when they mispell or use a very old address.
XO
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T:
ReplyDeleteYes, me too, I love the stockpile of this kind of stuff and feel quite gleeful using it.
Take that you b....s
XO
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Ramana:
ReplyDeleteOh the door knocking is awful and I also feel so complicit when friends of mine (they so need the money) go around and sell these expensive tickets for a paraplegic association that I can't find on the web or on the charity listing anywhere or even prizes awarded. I truly believe they trust this charity and the fees they get paid and would feel awful if I said no as they so need the fees.
Rock and hard place.
XO
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Hey WWW I'll take the extra stationary y labeand scratch out wisewebwoman and substitute webwiseguy also any labels will be gratefully received and put to good use in writing slanderous letters to politicos of all stripes
ReplyDeleteWe've been getting letters from the same two or three charities literally for years, and we always chuck them in the bin. Clearly they never update their databases. The waste of money on unanswered mail must be colossal.
ReplyDeleteGFB:
ReplyDeleteI think "Wisewebwarlock" might have a better sound to it, don't you think? Especially if you are going to hound the politicos.
They certainly deserve it. But they hear enough from this addie, use your own, my good man.;-)
XO
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Nick:
ReplyDeleteI'd say 80 to 90% of the funds go to marketing, promotion and administration.
it is appalling and I wish the sheeple would wake up.
XO
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WWW: have you tried "return to sender", unopened? (I expect that you have).
ReplyDeleteI think that "charities"is often a misnomer: these are often just big businesses with healthy tax advantages.
Frances:
ReplyDeleteI have to admit to 'tossing' it most of the time as the effort of writing and taking back to post office, enrages me.
I agree there is nothing charitable about any of them and the tax exemption status of these creeps also makes my head explode.
Arghhhhh.
XO
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It is a genuine marketing trick - we are conditioned to 'return' a gift, so there will be a lot of people who feel guilted into paying for the stickers.
ReplyDeleteI seem to have avoided most of the stickers give-aways though I did get given a pen with a charity envelope with the banner "We've made it easy for you to donate - we've even given you the pen!" Needless to say, I didn't sign up...