Response to a begging letter
Dear [manager at a charity to which I contribute on a monthly basis, but do not like to talk about],
Hello.
I am sure from your records that you have already identified me as a monthly contributor to your worthwhile charity. Yes, it is a modest amount. But I am a modest man, the sort of man who would never publicise my chartitable donations on a popular Internet weblog.
I am writing in connection with a number of communications I have had from yourselves in the last few months. Firstly by post, where you politely asked if I would be willing to increase my direct debit to offer further help with the great work that you do. I already give you the money that could be spent in the pub on a pint and some delicious corn-based snacks each week. So, as I am a man of modest means, I politely declined by disposing of your request in an ecologically sound manner.
You wrote again a month later, asking much the same. Again I politely declined, and recycled.
Then you phoned me. Or rather, an operative from a call centre phoned me, to ask if I would be willing to increase my direct debit. I made it perfectly clear that I would NOT be increasing my monthly donation, due to reduced circumstances, at which point your employee said, “What, not even by a pound?”.
I ask you, as a philanthropist, would you consider increasing your donation to a charity that appears to be spending more and more of its donated money targeting existing contributors for further funds, rather than on the cause for which it was established?
Let me be more explicit. I am happy to donate, as I currently do, to your charity. I think [it] is a good cause. But I am concerned that my money is merely funding unsolicited mailshots and call centre begging programmes.
This is not why I give you my quite-easily-earned-actually money.
I have made my position clear. I will not be increasing my monthly donation. As such, I am informing you that if I receive a single further request to increase my monthly donation, I will consider it waste on your part and I will immediately cancel my direct debit and move it to a charity which spends a greater proportion of its funds on its stated cause.
I do hope that this does not happen, but you have been given fair warning.
Regards,
Mr. Angry.
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April 21st, 2008 at 7:38 am
Good one Angry. I stopped giving to charity when I found that the directors pay themselves £50,000 a year.I,m not saying they should work for nothing but…come on! The moral is that no good deed goes unpunished.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:27 am
Totally agree. Starting a direct debit to a charity is a guaranteed way of increasing your junk mail and being made to feel guilty about only being ‘a bit’ charitable.
Bastards.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
The charity that I am about to be made redundant from has just awarded all of the senior managers (there are at least six) big pay rises - exec director is now on £90k, joint chief execs get £100k plus each. Many of the other hangers on are now on £50k plus. Not the sort of charity that get much from public donations, most of the stuff we do (or did, all the real workers are now redundant)is funded by government - yep, the good old taxpayer. Utterly immoral, particularly given that amongst our “objects” is social justice.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:13 am
The one thing I hate about charities is chuggers, they always seem to stand in front of me waving their clipboards about whilst telling me how my donations will make a big difference to the lives of people I don’t know and don’t give a shit about.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I too am in the same situation Angry. I give by direct debit every month to my chosen charity, but I seem to get letter after letter attempting to put me on some sort of guilt trip. They must have a special guilt department, whose sole job is to dream up sob stories to put in these letters. I too am on the edge of chucking them and finding another charity to donate my paltry sum to, the sole purpose of which is to make me feel better about myself and to be able to tell the can rattlers who chap my door every day that “Sorry, I give through my wages every month”. That way I sound a lot more generous than I really am.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I don’t give to charity but I do a lot of work with unmarried mothers. Does that count? I do approve of charity in small doses but when I,m asked if I have any spare change I say,”I,m not sure I haven’t finished living yet!”
April 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
You’re doing the right thing. It’s good in one way that charities have found a way to make themselves more lucrative by traditionally commercial branding, advertising and marketing, but they’re missing the point when they start on the aggressive sales techniques. Your average dodgy sales bastard knows very well that if he or she manages to close you on the spot, you will at least be getting a product for your money. It doesn’t quite work when you are giving the money away; all you get is your feel-good factor, and if they manage to take that away by making you fell guilty for not doing more…well, they’ll soon learn.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Good job.
As the saying goes - “Beggars can’t be choosers”
Sorry - I don’t contribute to guilt-mongers and pushy people.
The US has a “National Do-Not-Call” list (although political campaigns and charities are exempt… grrrr) - but if one of the exempt ones calls me, I tell them, “I’m on the Federal Do-Not-Call list. If you do not respect MY wishes, I have no intention of respecting YOUR desire for my money or my vote”.
They usually hang up on me.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I have actually cancelled my charity direct debits (they were only modest sums) for that very reason Angry. If you can find a charity where a larger proportion of the donations actually goes to help others than goes into the bosses pockets then I’d be glad to donate again
April 21st, 2008 at 3:23 pm
There’s a Do Not Call List here in the mother country too Sewmouse we call it the Telephone Preference Service, If your Preference is not to be phoned then you register with it telemarketeers are supposed to check with it before making a call, I’m on it and it cuts some of these bozo’s out but not all.
Companies with whom you do some kind of business already seem to regard themselves as exempt from it and ring you anyway. British Gas who supply my gas and the Halifax who supply my mortgage are particular offenders in this regard.
There are some companies especially the slightly dodgier ones who don’t bother to check it and there are just plain idiots.
I had a call once from Talktalk (phone company) that went along the lines of
“Hello this is Talktalk your telecomms provider we’d like to tell you about our new services”
“You’re not my telecomms provider”
“It say in our records we are”
“No you’re not and never have been”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes”
“Well just let me tell you about our new services”
At which point I hung up.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
FYI www.charitynavigator.org or similar can help sort out the percentages charities spend on program vs administrative costs.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:34 pm
I used to work for Talktalk, very dubious policy on signing people over. Works on the principal of, “who ever checks a signature?” And “Paperwork can always get lost”
April 21st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Testify. I have tried to find golden pound (dollar in my case) orgs but damn these charitable types are sneaky when it comes to admin costs and owning up and that. I work for a university where we are, twice a year, pressured, guilted and browbeaten into contributing to United Way. Why? Well, it turns out you can specify the University as your recipient for your donation so…
April 21st, 2008 at 9:55 pm
If anyone said to me “What, not even by a pound?” I think I’d cancel my direct debit immediately. That makes me really cross.
I was stopped by a man in the street for British Red Cross the other day, and when I asked how much they asked for a donation, he said £15 a month. Now, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I think that’s quite a lot, but they wouldn’t sign you up for less. You’d think anything would be better than nothing but apparently it isn’t…*dubious*
April 21st, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Don’t know about you but it really bothers me when charities advertise on childrens tv channels. I mean its not like the kids can set up a direct debit from their piggy bank or something so they obviously are going for the extra guilt factor of your children begging to “pweese help da fwuffy bunnys/lickul babies mommy.”
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
As a loather of repetitive, beggin junk mail, I do sympathise. However, charities are usually quite keen to make sure that they make the most of the money people give them, and some of that money is naturally spent on trying to increase the funds they receive, so that they can continue to do the things you support them for. I don’t personally see it as a waste, as all charities have roughly comparable running costs (as a percentage of the whole), and if you don’t ask, you don’t get. You could always avoid unsolicited mail and phone calls by letting the charity know that you don’t want to hear from them - they usually listen, but throwing stuff in the bin doesn’t really tell them much. That would also save them some money.
Mind you, if someone said ‘What? Not even by a pound?’ to me, I’d report them to the Fundraising Standards Board. That’s just twattish behaviour.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I also suffered with this problem for Cancer Research, you would think they would have been happy with the £10 per month they were getting off me for about 5 years (not bragging, I know that’s not that much but it was a lot to me) and I felt I kind of owed it to them as I smoke..
However when they started the regular guilt trip trying to get me to increase my payments all the time I did get the right arse. Then they carried on, despite me sending them a letter telling them I really didn’t want to increase my donations, and threatening to stop paying if they didn’t just leave me alone. Strange, they still carried on, so I stopped the payments.
After that I heard nothing else from them. Why would that be? It did feel like I was being stalked as they already thought I was a sucker, despite my best intentions.
Now when walking down the road the twats who have clip boards and try to be overly friendly to get you to stop I physically knowck them to the ground and stamp on their ‘being paid to collect for charity’ heads until they are really really dead.
Ok, so I don’t, but that really is how pissed off they make me. In a just and fair world it would be legal…
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I’m rather disturbed that my “Sorry - me Latvian - no Engleesh speak” tactic for detering chuggers has been rather spoiled of late by the bastards employing loads of Latvians. Now I just pretend to be a mental, which is no great chore on my part.