cellio | chutzpah or cluelessness?

An open letter to the Pittsburgh UJF:

When you called me a few weeks ago looking for money, I told you that: (1) I do not approve of telephone solicitations so put me on your do-not-call list, and (2) I would consider a written request along with all my other requests for charitable donations. I would have just told you to go away, but -- even though, like the United Way, you impose an overhead surcharge -- you do help some worthy local organizations that I don't already support directly. So I'm willing to consider a donation, but on my terms, not yours.

Sending me a letter thanking me for my pledge of $X was not the correct next move on your part.

Now that I think about it, you did the same thing last year. I called you and you apologized, saying it would not happen again. I eventually made a small donation. $X, in fact.

This year I'm not buying that explanation. If you had requested my help in an appropriate way I would have given, and probably more than $X. But you didn't ask; you presumed. Later this year you will send me a "bill" for a pledge I never made. Unless you convince me that you have taken corrective action, I won't be sending you anything this year other than this letter. And if you do convince me but your phone-spammers call next year, we're done forever.

You might decide that my donation is too small to be worth the effort of setting this right. That's fine too. If I don't hear from you, I'll assume that's what happened.

I've also posted this letter to my blog. If there's any followup, I'll share that with my readers too. I'm not unfair, just unimpressed.

Edit 2-12 21:30: Today I came home to a polite message on the answering machine from the campaign manager, along with email saying she would like to speak with me. It was too late to catch her today, but I will call tomorrow morning.

Edit 2-13 17:15: I spoke with the campaign manager today. She is very apologetic, said she would put me on the do-not-call list, and offered to just send me a letter once a year and otherwise not bother me, which is perfect. She also wants to meet me for coffee (or equivalent in my case), even after I pointed out that I'm not one of their big-time donors.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The ACLU does this to me also. It's one of the reasons I've not renewed my membership in...(wait for it) TWO years. And still, I get a "membership" renewal notice in the mail. (I had concerns about their current leadership and their obsessive focus on fund raising.) I'd also give to my local NPR station if they didn't say things like "For *ONLY* $60 you too can become a member of KXXX." so, what if I can ONLY donate $30? Does this make part of the unclean, unwashed masses?

I'd rather give my money to Kiva. Feh. At least they don't hit me up like I'm an endless bucket.

Yeah, "membership" that doesn't carry benefits, only pressure to contribute a certain amount, is pretty bogus. It's public radio; I can listen to it regardless of how much money I send in. The local museum, on the other hand, gives members discounted entry in exchange for a certain contribution level, which doesn't really cost them much of anything but conveys a benefit.

Most of my charitable donations are donations, not memberships.

The Dallas JCC did something similar to me some years ago. They also sent me something that was formatted to look like a bill in an attempt to collect on a pledge I declined to make. Repeated phone calls to the person(s) supposedly in charge of these matters yielded no results. I too was unimpressed.

A lot of charity fundraising irritates me, and makes me less likely to donate. My pet peeve is that if you once donate, for whatever reason, you are on their list forever - so a one-off donation in memory of someone who supported a particular cause spawns a lifetime of begging letters.

But complaints are usually met with the explanation that 'we know it alienates some people, but it brings in more than it loses.' So that's all right, then...

Indeed. When they punish contributions with enough beg letters, phone calls, trinkets, and whatnot to exceed the value of the original contribution, it leads me to conclude that the original contribution was a bad idea that I shouldn't repeat. Charities need to get smarter about this, especially for the one-time memorial contributions, as you point out. In that case in particular it's even less likely that I actually care about the cause, after all! After all, I didn't choose it.

Some are good about this, but not enough. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, sends you an acknowledgment letter, asks if you want the T-shirt (they don't send it if you don't ask), and then leaves you alone for a year. Others should take a lesson from that. I always donate to EFF, but the pests who send me monthly solicitations, Christmas cards, stickers, tote bags, etc don't tend to get more from me.

But complaints are usually met with the explanation that 'we know it alienates some people, but it brings in more than it loses.' So that's all right, then...

I always want to ask them: how would you even know? Did the companies they hired to do their fundraising tell them that?

Ah, the "We lose a dime on every sale, but make it up in volume" theory!

Actually, they're probably right. They know, or should know, how much it costs to run the campaign, how much they raised, how many people did not make an additional donations, and how many first-timers showed up. I'd bet that good rate of return is somewhere less than 5 to 10%, making their case even stronger.

When they punish contributions with enough beg letters, phone calls, trinkets, and whatnot to exceed the value of the original contribution, it leads me to conclude that the original contribution was a bad idea that I shouldn't repeat.

Word.

And full agreement about the EFF's way about handling things. They get a lot of money from me that other charities might have gotten had they acted wisely...

Ditto.

What I hate is 5 letters telling me to renew. I might accidentally respond to two of them, sending in a double contribution. So do I get a two-year membership when I do that? Ha ha! Please.

I also dislike it when the police department calls for a donation, and explicitly says they're driving by the house to pick it up. There a subtle threat here ("we know where you live"), and it's just too close to extortion.

And number 3: I hate pledge drives on NPR. I make a point of NEVER renewing my membership at a time when it might be mistaken for a pledge drive contribution. (Ideally, I shoot for halfway between drives.) Why would I send them money when they are doing the thing I hate most? That's really rewarding bad behavior.

Yeah, the overwhelm-and-maybe-we'll-get-a-bonus approach is annoying. Fortunately for me, I keep a list of charitable contributions as I make them -- makes tax-time easier, especially now that we have to supply a city and state for each one. (So now I write down more than I used to.) So I'm less likely to fall for the double-whammy. (I handle the household tzedakah, so I don't have to worry about duplication between Dani and me.)

I share your annoyance with the police campaigns. Those are the only ones where we do cough up even though they called us, because, like you, we feel intimidated and bullied and really, who are we going to report it to? So we give them $20 a year, I think; they'd probably get more if they behaved appropriately, but they don't so they don't.

When I get a phone call asking for a donation I just repeat the same answer I grew up hearing my mother use - over and over, politely but firmly, until the caller gets the point that this is the only response that they will get*. My mother's line? "I don't do pledges over the phone. If you send my something in writing I'll look at it." Most of the time they don't bother asking for my address, and if they do send me something in the mail and I decide not to respond to it, my promise to look at it can be fulfilled by my spending just enough time & attention to determine which parts should be shredded and which should be recycled as is.

*Amusingly, this "repeat as necessary" tactic is the same one that I used with teenagers when I worked at a high school.

That is almost exactly the phrase I use. (I add "put me on your do-not-call list".)

chutzpah or cluelessness?

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