Topical Juice

If you read my last post, you’ll know that I do, on occasion, donate money to a few causes I care about. But that means my name gets sold onto some “sucker list” (and I know that sounds harsh, but that’s what it used to be called according to a friend of mine who worked for a fund-raising organization a few years back). Which means that I get a constant influx of snail mail from a wide variety of organizations, many of them representing very worthy causes, all asking for help.

I don’t mind them asking, as over the years I’ve learned how to separate the emotional pull of their plea from the reality of what I can feasibly give (and still be able to pay my bills). Some of them do win me over and get added to my slowly growing list of causes I support.

But what bothers me are the ones that send me some gift, most often return address labels, occasionally greeting cards, pocket calendars, or some other equally useless (in this digital age) item. All I can think when I see them is, what a tremendous waste! I do all of my banking and bill paying online, and use auto-draft for most of my monthly expenses, and mail out maybe only 1 check every other month, and thanks to my insurance agent I already have enough return address labels to last me the rest of my life. If I never move again that is. And pocket calendars? That’s what I have my computer and PDA/cell phone for.

If I could, or would, actually use what they send me, then perhaps I’d feel guilty enough using them to send off a few dollars for them (which is what they are hoping we’ll do of course). But for me they’re useless and all it does is make me angry that the company doing the fund-raising is wasting the organization’s dollars on this “last-century” tactic - dollars that could be put to better use!

For me, a nice simple, heartfelt letter and maybe a few photos is a much more successful tactic than the “we’re sending you a free gift with the hope that you’ll send us money for it” tactic. I’m curious to know what everyone else thinks about these types of solicitations.

I haven’t yet had a chance to poll my usual posse on this one, but I will, and I’ll post the results soon. Unless of course everyone else disagrees with me, in which case I’ll post a mea culpa…..in the meantime, let me know what you think - vote and comment!

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I have a large circle of family and close friends, all of whom are used to my frequent (and sometimes unusual) questions and solicitations for their opinion. Sometimes I’m surprised by their answers, other times not so much. My latest round of calls and emails to them was spurred by a sentence - just a few words, really.

I’m an avid reader of Newsweek, albeit a bit behind since my busy schedule means that my magazines pile up until I have time to sit and read, although I do try to keep up. Recently I was reading the Letters to the Editor, and in the comments about letters received in response to a story they did recently on the slaughter of Silverback Gorillas in Africa, I was struck by just a few words from one anguished reader - …”After getting no sleep last night, the first thing I did was join the Nature Conservancy”…

Out of all the letters they received, apparently only one indicated that the writer was moved to action. Granted the likelihood is great that many others were moved to action and only one wrote about it, or that a number of them wrote about it, but only one so eloquently as to receive mention. But it made me wonder…..

So I asked a large number of people two questions: 1) Are there issues or causes that you deeply care about or that concern you? and 2) What do you do about it (them)? What I was curious to know is, generally speaking, how prevalent is participation? Do people care about issues and then donate time, money, or effort to help effect change or support causes? Or do they assume that enough others will, and so remain complacent?

After quite a bit of back and forth with more questions and answers, I was, on this occasion, surprised by the results:

• While nearly 100% admitted to caring deeply about the environment, only 20% joined an environmental organization or donated to those that work to offset carbon emissions;
• 85% felt strongly about a current political candidate, but only 5% of those had donated to their preferred candidate’s campaign fund;
• Roughly 40% listen to public radio, but of those only 5% donate to their local public station;
• 50% of those I asked said that they are concerned about the plight of refugees in war-torn regions, but only 10% of that 50% gave any support to organizations such as the Red Cross who are working to help those regions
• Everyone admitted to feeling some level of concern over the problem of poverty and homelessness in our own country, but only 1% volunteered time to local shelters or missions, and only 2% donated money to charities that help the homeless

It seems that while everyone cares about something, and often a number of things, only a small few feel compelled to get involved. So naturally this got me wondering even more….why would people not get involved?

It turns out that it’s not a simple answer, but most often what I heard was that there is SO much to care about that it gets overwhelming. A number of people were concerned that if they start giving, they will get inundated with requests from a number of worthy causes, and at what point are you forced to say “no” to stay solvent? I know from experience this is a valid concern - I do give a few dollars here and there to several organizations, support my local public radio station, and even donate to political campaigns, and my mailbox is now full of requests for help. It does get overwhelming. And it is very hard to say “no” sometimes, to decide who gets something and who doesn’t.

My belief is that you have to stay focused - pick one or two causes or issues that you really, deeply care about, and do what you reasonably can for them. Encourage your teens to at least be aware of what issues the world faces, so that they can grow into compassionate, caring adults (I urge caution with younger children though, who can develop anxiety over exposure to the often troubling nature of many issues).

Stay tuned for my next post……an open plea to fund-raising organizations, who aren’t always doing right by the organizations they raise dollars for…….