charity for dummies?

[cellio]

The United Way folks were here today. I decided that I dislike United Way many years ago, so I didn't go to the meeting, but I was disappointed to notice a side effect. A couple of large trays of pastries appeared in our kitchen after the meeting. These were the leftovers. So in addition to spending money on overhead, United Way also spends some of the money on food to bribe potential donors with? This is as bad as the charities who send out unsolicited T-shirts and photo albums and umbrellas (to name 3 things I have received in the last month). At least those charities are only diverting money from themselves, but it still bugs me that it's not going to the cause or necessary overhead, but to trinkets.

(Yes, I do write to most of the folks who send this kind of stuff and ask them to stop. Sometimes it works, but often it doesn't.)

This sort of thing isn't my main reason for disliking United Way, by the way. It's just a minor but visible one. I didn't like their allocation algorithm the last time I heard them explain it, and I prefer to support my causes directly and see no reason to pay for an additional layer of overhead.