BS: Good causes, bad strategy

Subject: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: michaelr
Date: 22 May 12 - 08:56 PM

How many of you have had this experience? You get a call or a letter from a local good cause and decide to pitch in - say, the police widows' fund or firefighters collecting toys for kids - or you send a few bucks to MoveOn or the Sierra Club. Because you know they do good work, and you want to help out, right?

Next thing you know, you start getting unsolicited mail and, worse, phone calls from all sorts of other good causes - breast cancer, autism, diabetes, the 98%, Wildlife Federation, the Democratic Party, etc. etc. You're on the Do Not Call list - but that doesn't work for charitable organizations. They share (or sell) their lists among each other so that every one of them has you marked as an easy touch.

At my house, it has got completely out of control. We get at least one, sometimes three or more, unsolicited phone calls per day. Our mailbox is stuffed with pitches every day. How many trees do these "progressive" people waste for mailers that just get thrown away?

It is so bad now that all this mail goes straight in the trash - I mean recycling, of course - and anyone who calls gets yelled at to "Take me off your list NOW".

Don't these people realize they're shooting themselves in the foot by inundating their potential supporters to the point of barely controllable rage? I used to be fine with sending some money to a few good causes, but they have only themselves to blame when I now say:

FUCK ALL Y'ALL!

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Bobert
Date: 22 May 12 - 08:59 PM

Yup!!! It happens... That's what the trashcan is for...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: GUEST,mark-s(on the road)
Date: 22 May 12 - 09:11 PM

Later in life you finally realise the true meaning of the old axiom -

"They came to do good, and they did right well!"

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 May 12 - 09:21 PM

Petitions in one's e-mail.

Good causes, yeah. Sierra Club, ACLU, Greenpeace, Save the Wolves, Polar Bears, Turtles, Support the Union Workers in Wisconsin, Planned Parenthood, you name it. You sign the petitions, and the next thing you start getting—from the same organizations—is whines for donations.

I get a few that I do look at pretty thoroughly, like AlterNet Headlines and such—and Bob Livingston's Liberty Alerts (VERY Right Wing, but I want to know what these people are saying).

I'd LIKE to be able to donate to some of these organizations, but, Hells Bells, sports fans, I'm not made of money! Call be selfish, but I do have a building maintenance fee to pay (in lieu of rent—I live in a co-op apartment building) and I like to eat now and then!

I got 42 e-mails this morning and about 35 of them had the words "Donate" or "Contribute" in them.

Sorry! I've become a bit callous about glancing through and simply zapping them.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 May 12 - 11:56 AM

Don, I'll forward to you all the emails and phone calls I get asking me to contribute to the Romney/Gingerich/Perry/Paul/John Birch Society/KKK/etc. campaigns.

No, no, don't thank me....

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 May 12 - 01:27 PM

Had a friend who would put a no thank you note in the prepaid return envelope. If enough people did it they would get a taste of their own medicine.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 May 12 - 02:09 PM

If you want to be really nasty, I had a friend a few decades back who was thoroughly feed up with the volume of junk mail he kept getting.

He was a scuba diver, and he made his own lead weights for his weight belts by salvaging the little curved strips of lead they use for balancing tires and melting them in a mold. He had a lot of small lead "ingots" laying around, so he would take the "return postage guaranteed" envelope, stuff a lead weight into it, and mail it off.

Nasty, nasty, nasty (snicker snicker)!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 May 12 - 02:21 PM

and here I was thinking this thread was about the Occupy movement.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 May 12 - 03:28 PM

I went through that when I was a member of 'Friends of the Earth' many years back. They were the only organization I'd given my name/address to. About three weeks later I was hearing from every f'ing organization on the planet. I phoned their head office and of course they knew nothing about any of it. I ended my monthly contribution and sent a scathing letter to the head office and informed them that if they didn't get my name back from the other organizations I would show up someday and take a baseball bat to their office furniture then wait to be arrested so as to get some newspaper interest in the story. One organization I know of that honours their commitment to silencio regarding yer info is the War Amps. Great group that does good work.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 May 12 - 05:22 PM

Send 'em an anonymous money-order in an envelope with a fictitious return address.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 May 12 - 05:49 PM

LOL. Here y'are, the absolutely-best ever humourist that posts to Mudcat--maybe with the exception of Spaw. I will take that advice, but I hope you don't mind that I put your address on the return.

Gotta love it when a plan comes together. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: gnu
Date: 23 May 12 - 07:01 PM

9... I had a falling out with The War Amps YEARS ago. I ALWAYS donated and donated more than I "needed" to. Then, they started sending mail to me as The War AmputATIONS and not AmputEES. I wrote a letter to the head honcho and it said I was not pleased with this "marketing technique" and found it obnoxious. He called me and said it had always been called The War Amputations of Canada and that he was upset by my letter. I told him that calling me to lie to me was just inane and that he should be ashamed of his actions and to make sure I never got any more solicitations. Never did. Still pisses me off to this day.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 23 May 12 - 07:37 PM

We sent an email to the president of the ACLU telling her that either the phone calls or our contributions would stop immediately. The phone calls stopped but the mail continues.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 May 12 - 10:43 PM

Man, that ain't right, gnu. However, you're still a good man, and come the end of the day, that's what matters, imo.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 May 12 - 11:31 PM

I'd like to mention that Chongo is soliciting campaign contributions for his bid for the presidency. This IS a good cause, folks! Give generously, and put an ape in the White House.

No George Bush jokes, please. Yes, I know you want to...but have a little consideration for the feelings of chimps across the nation, and resist the impulse when it arises.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 May 12 - 11:41 PM

LH, the next time my impulse arises I intend to have it bronzed.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 May 12 - 11:46 PM

LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 May 12 - 06:52 AM

I recently decided to stop supporting a well known organisation I've been supporting with quarterly payments since 1988.

I tend to over-react to emotional blackmail (my mother was an expert) & I've disliked their newsletter for a while ("little Mary aged 3 looked after her drug-addict mother ... with a cute picture posed by a model & suggested donations of $200, $300, or your preferred amount) & personalised letter with my name in every paragraph, & this issue finally flipped me from grit-teeth-&-send-my-preferred-amount-cos-they-are-a-good-cause to F@#K you. So they've lost around $400pa from me.

Instead I'm increasing my donation to a much smaller good cause, run by a woman I've known & admired for her work in the 10 or so years I've supported them.

And I never speak to anyone who rings me - as soon as I hear the voice saying I'm wazzaname from whatever organisation, I hang up.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Bert
Date: 24 May 12 - 01:36 PM

Any spare dollar that I can afford to give away goes to the old guy panhandling outside the liquor store.

He never bugs me with phone calls or junk mail and I get great pleasure imagining him enjoying a much needed drink.

Subject: RE: BS: Good causes, bad strategy
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 24 May 12 - 02:18 PM

I've recently taken to putting all the junk mail I get into the largest of the pre-pay envelopes, sealing it with cellotape and posting the whole shebang to the one company.

They are disappearing one by one.

I wonder why?

Don T.