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Sometime ago, I noticed that if I give small donations to a bunch of different charities, they squander it all sending me bucket loads of junk mail. Now I select a very small number of charities to which I make larger donations with a request that they do not mail me anything. It's worked out much better.
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What band boosters? I have volunteers, but we generally don't do fundraisers. Returnable container drives (occurred once), and solicitation for donations at concerts (which receive thank-you notes and tax-deduction receipts but no requests for further gifts) and we make do.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Sometime ago, I noticed that if I give small donations to a bunch of different charities, they squander it all sending me bucket loads of junk mail. Now I select a very small number of charities to which I make larger donations with a request that they do not mail me anything. It's worked out much better.
Sorta works out to a donation plus a bribe.
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"80 cents of every dollar you donate will be used right here locally--sending you more requests for even more money."
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: Sometime ago, I noticed that if I give small donations to a bunch of different charities, they squander it all sending me bucket loads of junk mail. Now I select a very small number of charities to which I make larger donations with a request that they do not mail me anything. It's worked out much better.
Sorta works out to a donation plus a bribe.
Not exactly. Its not that I really mind that much about getting the junk mail, it's that I'm much rather they spend the money I give them on something other advertising and fund raising.
If I split my donation between two groups, they both spend money printing and mailing me reports. If I put that money into just one organization, that waste is cut in half.
[ January 18, 2010, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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quote: Its not that I really mind that much about getting the junk mail, it's that I'm much rather they spend the money I give them on something other advertising what that do.
I give regularly to a charity and got sick of them sending me advertisements for this reason. I called and expressed my concerns and they took me off their list. The amount of mail I've gotten from them went from multiple letters a month to so far no letters. If you really believe in the charity, it might be worth a call.
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quote: Its not that I really mind that much about getting the junk mail, it's that I'm much rather they spend the money I give them on something other advertising what that do.
I give regularly to a charity and got sick of them sending me advertisements for this reason. I called and expressed my concerns and they took me off their list. The amount of mail I've gotten from them went from multiple letters a month to so far no letters. If you really believe in the charity, it might be worth a call.
I've already done that.
I used to be giving to multiiple NGOs that were doing very similar things. I pretty much gave at least a little to everyone I thought I could support. I've changed that philosophy. I've selected one or two NGOs in each category and give generously to those. I think I make more of a difference that way than spreading the money around. Mailings and reports are just one of the reasons for that.
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quote:If I split my donation between two groups, they both spend money printing and mailing me reports. If I put that money into just one organization, that waste is cut in half.
I work in fundraising and the reason organizations don't view this as waste is because the cost of sending those mailings is far less than the amount an organization would likely lose from potential donors who wouldn't give if they weren't reminded to. "I didn't give because I didn't recieve anything asking me to" is a very common issue. There's no real way of knowing which donors want those reminders and which could do without them.
But one simple way to fix unneeded waste is by simply writing a note with the gift that you should be taken off the mailing list. Usually it shouldn't be any harder than that.
One other thing to note is that, depending on the organization and what they are raising money for, participation (meaning total number of donors, regardless of dollar amount) can be important too. That's because a high participation sends a signal, particularly to foundations who often ask for those numbers, that a given charity is cared about and is worth supporting. So small gifts can often be valuable in a different way even if a large percentage of the monetary value went towards the cost of soliciting the gift.
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