Charity Rant

[jducoeur]

Yes, I know that you're a good cause -- I wouldn't have sent money to you otherwise. But when you construe that donation as a "membership", and imply that I am therefore somehow obligated to follow it up with the same amount (or, preferably, more) next year, that does nothing to endear your cause to me. And when you begin to send me monthly notices about the latest Urgent Crisis that requires more money from me, I will start to throw out your mail unopened. There are plenty of other deserving charities out there, and some of them are significantly less annoying than you.

(The worst thing about the above is that it applies equally well to a couple *dozen* organizations that are postal-spamming me, effectively colluding to make me thoroughly cynical about the whole concept. When 3/4 of my mail is charities dunning me for cash, it just gets tiresome. Bloody tragedy of the commons...)

Comments

[keshwyn]

No kidding.

Also, when it -is- a membership (Sierra Club, for example, is a membership qualifies you to go on some of their cool trips), telling me that it's going to expire SOON when it's six months from expiring? Not cool.

Selling my name to other groups? Double-plus uncool. I had words with them over that one.

On the other hand, they don't call me for cash, which is nice. They do listen about that.

[matildalucet.livejournal.com]

I've been told that the reasons for sending renewal notices six months in advance (at least for magazines) include allowing for general procrastination and a few of the notices to get lost (have they seen my desk?), and to improve cash flow for the company. I don't like it, I've never liked it, I tried to limit it when I was with GWS. But it is quite hard to argue with statistics that show that it is a profitable technique.