Charities - SECOND NOTICE rant

[EarPlug]

Why waste your time?
• The telemarketers are an outside company hired to make the calls. They have nothing to do with the charities. It is just a job.
• Mailing the stuff back just wastes your time and effort. The small number of people that do this is hardly a dent in their budget.
• A very large number of "charities" spend most of the donations on administrative cost's and marketing to get more donations.

If you want to donate to charities find the list's, check them out and then, donate directly to them.

 

[newbury]

Why wast (sic) your time?
<snip>
• Mailing the stuff back just wastes your time and effort. The small number of people that do this is hardly a dent in their budget.
<snip>

Apparently it HAS worked for some.

 

[MikePA]

In response I started to open the mailings, filled the postage paid return envelopes with the mailing appeal literature they sent or one of the other mailings and sending that back on their dime. It stopped in about 6 months. YMMV

Apparently it HAS worked for some.

If mailing the literature back actually worked it would not have taken six months. A more likely explanation is they simply fell off the mailing list. If so, it didn't work.

 

[TCJatko]

I think giving to most formal charities is a scam. They are run by people who live a lot bigger lifestyle than we do.

We almost never get phone solicitations. Our land line goes to the fax machine, which will ring through the day but which we never answer.

We give locally. We contribute to our church, and if there is an event that has a cost we will sponsor a family or two to that event. We help support a missionary family that we know.

We frequently hire people from local families to do work we could do ourselves. Often this doesn't end up being a tax deduction, so the amount we can put into it might be lower, but I am not convinced that God has much of a relationship with the IRS. What it does do is give people both needed money, and the dignity of working for it.

Hey Dave, they gotta' attract the "most qualified" people to run them. Right?

 

[newbury]

If mailing the literature back actually worked it would not have taken six months. A more likely explanation is they simply fell off the mailing list. If so, it didn't work.

Well I wish we could figure out how to fall off the mailing list as we get and have been getting hundreds of solicitations for years and don't seem to "fall off" any.

 

[TomSeller]

I never answer the house phone unless it is someone I know. Caller ID is a godsend for that. The one I didn't like when I lived closer in was the high pressure inner big city kids that come out to the suburbs and go door to door. I always answer the door and it was sometimes hard to get them to go away. They usually sold magazine subscriptions and would then ask you for a $300 to $600 "donation". Living more remote now has advantages.

 

[TCJatko]

Well I wish we could figure out how to fall off the mailing list as we get and have been getting hundreds of solicitations for years and don't seem to "fall off" any.

I think this is a result of one "charity" selling its mailing list to another, and another, and another, and the beat goes on...

 

[MikePA]

Well I wish we could figure out how to fall off the mailing list as we get and have been getting hundreds of solicitations for years and don't seem to "fall off" any.

What is the problem with just throwing the mail away and ignoring the phone numbers you don't recognize?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I screen almost all my home phone calls, leave a message after the beep........ If I recognize the voice, I might pick up.

 

[TomSeller]

What is the problem with just throwing the mail away and ignoring the phone numbers you don't recognize?

My wife had an addiction to mail order catalogs plus anytime I order something for the farm I seem to get on their catalog list even though I check the boxes not to when I see them. I have a PO Box in town for mailing and pity the poor fool who gets that box number after we move. It is not unusual to get a 1" stack each day.