It was finally clear to me that Charity, with its endless stream of pseudo-transactional "free gifts," is actually an industry, just like the ones that shape our world day after day. Except that you are not expected to pay for your car or your bottled water by "voluntary" donation. I happened across a website for people who manage non-profit organizations (not cited here) and they were talking about the business of putting together "packages" for their clients. I think it goes: you have a cause, but you don't know how to market it. They put together a package for you with options to choose from like address labels, token coins, lists of tickets and vouchers, photographs and graphic design, etc. You just pay them to do it and you specify what you need. Am I right? I know there's at least one professional fund-raiser in this little Facebook circle of mine (Tim).
Another thing I learned is that these small-scale charities (and many of the large-scale ones too) repeat their mailings to me at intervals of about every other month, depending on how much I gave to them. Animal welfare....here comes Pickles the Pig again! Here's Randy the horse who we saved from the "Killer-Buyers!" Crisis! Urgent! Time is running out! How could you let these innocent animals be sent to the slaughterhouse? (All animals in these texts are "innocent" or "sweet," and the repetitive, emotionally intense texts all sound like they were written by the same person, which is probably true. "What do I do for my job? I write blurbs about abused animals for charities. Save the Koalas!")
Meanwhile the suffering only spreads and intensifies, both for people and animals.
I am sailing on a raft of stacked papers over a sea of pain and suffering and horror, hearing endless cries for help in the crisis! crisis! crisis! A few dollars more will especially help here! Your free gift is enclosed.
My mother gets these all the time. She gives selectively but they pass around their mailing lists. She has enough address labels to wallpaper a small room. Also calendars, cards, and just odds and ends. Boys Town is especially bad for large stuffed envelopes month after month.
ReplyDeleteMom critiques these campaigns because she used to work in development (fund-raising) for TCU and the Amon Carter Museum. She knows all about appeals to emotions and the wording of a touch, and is probably immune to them all because of that.
Not everybody is. I had an otherwise very intelligent elderly cousin, approaching 100, who was convinced that Oral Roberts was corresponding with her personally because she received signed letters from him. It did not sink in that the signatures were printed. She also got an autographed Bible from him, with his signature in gold on the front cover.
The most unusual "gifts" I have received were a set of handmade paper prayer flags for a charity for Tibetans, and a holy medal plus a promise of perpetual masses for a Catholic charity. These just come out of left field and their purpose is to make you feel guilty and send them something back. While I do give to charities, it is ones I seek out, not ones that seek me out. I refuse to let them sucker me in.