How to Kill the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs

For years we received one letter per year from the American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Disabled American Veterans, and two or three others. We usually sent a donation to each of these causes and heard no more from them for another year, except for an acknowledgement of our gift.

In the past year or so, we started receiving daily from one to five solicitations from the charities we always gave to, plus many we had never heard of. This year we received solicitations from "The Foot and Mouth Artists," Salesian missions and several Indian tribes we had never heard of. There must have been ten or twelve more
charities that we were totally unfamiliar with.

For a month or two, I wrote down every solicitation we received, and then figured up what it would cost to give their minimum suggested donation to each one. It would run between $300 and $500 a month. As average people living on retirement income, we couldn't afford to do that even if we wanted to.

We also received multiple calendars, note pads, and enough return address stickers to paper a room. (I never use them.) We are still receiving a couple each week that have a coin, usually a nickel or dime, glued to the letter. We received enough Christmas cards, had they been the kind we would use, to keep us from needing to buy any.

All this makes me wonder how much good it does to donate to these charities. It seems to me they must spend most of the donated money on materials to send out to people who have given all they intend to.

I'm sure they send all these "goodies" to entice people to contribute to their cause. Maybe I'm different from everyone else, but to me it's coercion, pure and simple. I just don't appreciate it when people try to manipulate or use me. The law says you are not required to pay for anything sent without your permission, nor are you required to return it. I don't want this stuff and I refuse to pay for it or go to the trouble to send it back.

One frustrating thing is that if you donate to a charity, they immediately sell or give your name and address to other groups and soon you hear from them. Recently we had our checkbook out ready to send a donation to Smile Train, because they promised, "Make a donation to us one time and we'll never ask for another one." But in fine print at the bottom of the letter, they advised that, "From time to time we may pass your name on to other worthwhile charities." So their letter went in the trash unacknowledged, as all the others do.

While this may sound like we're tightwads who won't give to worthwhile causes, let me hasten to say that's not the case. We give to two specific groups, in addition to our church, every month. We made a sizable donation to the Haiti relief fund, through one of the aforementioned groups we give to monthly (Samaritan's Purse). We share what little we have with needy individuals whenever the need arises. But we like to choose where our money goes.

It especially aggravates me that these groups don't seem to pay any attention to whether or not you're giving. Give one month and you continue receiving solicitations from them again and again. Don't give at all and the next letter you receive from them, if you bother to read it, may be praising you for giving. Give to a charity in January and for the next few months you'll still be receiving letters that state, "If you haven't given already....." Don't they keep any records in these places, other than their address list?

If they would just stop sending solicitations to people who never give, they could put that money to much better use.

It makes me really sad to say this, but we have been overwhelmed with these solicitations to the extent that we have started routinely tossing them in the trash without even reading their heartrending pleas for help. I know these are all or mostly all really worthwhile causes. But trying to decide which ones to help makes us feel even more overwhelmed than we do already. There's no way we could afford to help them all. So we won't be donating to any of them in the future.

All I have to say to all these worthwhile charities is, I hope you have regular supporters who can deal with all the hoopla and high pressure, but you won't be hearing from us anymore. As far as we're concerned, you've done gone and killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.