How Fund-raisers Waste Your Money

Fund raisers waste thousands of dollars trying to make you give more.

For the last three months, I have been keeping detailed track of all the uninvited requests for money that come into my house. These are not advertisements or catalogs – I get some of them too, but these are only the ones that tell you how much you should give.

In the 91 calendar days (including postal holidays and Sundays) from April 20 through July 20, I recorded 209 letters, 24 phone calls and 1 e-mail; 234 in ¼ of a year. Over 800 envelopes annually into this one home, each containing a return envelope to send money in. (800 more.)

Many contain gifts – a sheet of return address labels, membership cards for organizations I have not joined, note pads, calendars, certificates of appreciation, “surveys”with no-brainer questions to fill out, petitions to sign.

Most go directly into the waste basket, but never mind: the promotional agency hired to raise their funds will send another request in a month, sometimes with a protest that they haven't yet heard from me.

I do support some them, but never more than once a year for any of them regardless of how many times they ask. And I choose which ones I support, not the other way around. Mostly I support a few medical, refugee, educational groups that I consider are doing a good job but do not have mass appeal – Doctors without Borders, MADD, an orphanage in Myanmar, several missionaries I know personally, a couple of famine/disaster relief organizations. Probably 1 or 2 groups in most of the categories listed below. I tend to avoid those sending unsolicited gifts; why should my donation pay for junk?

Out of curiosity, I have tried to categorize them and found among these 234:

50 political

43 medical diseases

20 religious groups

12 poverty or hunger

6 refugee support

13 protecting the environment

6 protecting animals (but a tiger farm in Colorado? C'mon!)

9 American Indian groups, all using the same Minnesota address

12 Veterans groups

10 Gun Control

8 Planned parenthood

Most of the rest had miscellaneous objectives; about 9 appeared to be scams.

It's not that most of these groups are unworthy. If I could support them all, I would. But a dollar to each, less 49 cents postage, would accomplish little. I sometimes explain that to a phone caller. But sending a form letter in the enclosed envelope is pointless. Nobody from the organization is at that address, that's just the group hired to collect the money, in most cases. They would handle my letter the same way I handle theirs.

How about you? How many do you average per week? And how do you handle them?