To Expect a Charity to Thank me for 13 years of monthly donations?

[FishWidow]

When my dd was born 13 years ago I decided to set up a monthly direct debit of £5 to a well known children's charity.
A few months ago I decided to 'review' my donations and changed to an animal welfare charity.

Having added up what I had donated to the first charity over the past 13 years it comes to £780 which is a sizeable sum in my books.
I cancelled my direct debit with them and haven't heard anything since!! AIBU in expecting them to at least thank me for my donations?

I know that they are probably trying to save as much money as possible but a short letter and a 2nd class stamp would mean a lot to me!

On the matter of charities, am I the only person who gets really annoyed at being stopped in the street by people pretending to be over-friendly in order that they can get me to sign up?

They probably haven't realised the dd has been cancelled yet. When they do they'll write thanking you for all the money you've given them and asking for it to be put up.

I cancelled a charitable donation 4 years ago - it was through give as you earn and I changed jobs and didn't renew it. They still write to me thanking for donations and asking for more.

erm.

did you do it for thanks?

one 2nd class stamp and a letter doesn't cost much but if they wrote to everyone that caneclled a DD they would have no ment to put towards their... er... CHARITY!!

YABU

no money to put towards

I absolutely see your point but it will all be computer generated so no one will take responsiblity for noticing that you have stopped.

Charity giving is such an emotive topic - I give a modest amount to Great Ormond Street Hospital but was shocked to see that a Doctor has been on 'gardening leave' for over two years for 'whistle blowing' - costing thousands and thousands of pounds - makes me wonder why I give £5 a month.

Yes, I really dislike those charity muggers as well.

Ragwort, not necessarily. My DP works as membership officer for a small charity. He spends his unpaid (!) weekends ringing up people who have cancelled their DDs and noting down the reasons, trying to persuade them to rejoin, thanking them for their contributions, etc.

However, their charity has thousands and thousands of members and he is one person. He works on a 2-3 month backlog. How long ago was it you cancelled, OP?

I cancelled about 8 months ago.

Strangely, when I was donating I was getting letters every 2 months or so asking for more!!

I think what annoys me most is that when you do donate you get put on some sort of "suckers list" where you continually receive mailshots/phone calls asking for more.

I am not working any more but I continue to do my charity donation DDs. I have come quite close to writing to the chief of Oxfam to say that if I get one more begging letter - sometimes with pen attached - I am going to cancel my DD. I have so far stopped myself.

I have to agree, BS, that while some (perhaps bigger charities, only) are getting funds, they are willing to push out 'junk mail' to encourage inclusion in wills, etc.

I remember the RSPCA even went to court to fight over 2 million (maybe my memory is wrong) left to them by the wife of a farmer, when she had gone a little cranky in old age and left their daughter (who had helped run the farm as they got older, despite being a hospital doctor all week) not a penny.

Daughter challenged the will, RSPCA fought for every penny to go to them, not an ounce of consideratio for bereaved daughter.

One reason why I am setting up a website where only small, local, charities would get donations out of it, rather than any national ones (which now seem to pay huge amounts to their HQ staff and have marketing executives).

In all honesty the junk mail (and around here, excess of plastic bags for clothes collections) makes me wonder how much goes in unwanted materials, distribution, and is often unwanted by the recipients anyway.

I'd be far happier for clothes collections to drop a leaflet once a quarter or have contact details on websites and in (free weekly) newspaper adverts now and then so a household could ring to ask for a bag to be sent/dropped in and perhaps even deliver that bag if they are going into town - every week (or so it seemed) in the summer months we had 2 or more bags delivered, and then miscellaneous vans driving in and out of the road (a cul-de-sac, so very obvious when they just turn around and drive out again) with nothing to pick up, or very little [less than 15 homes so hardly likely with number of bags vs homes they would get something each week!)

Also, BS, while not about charities, I had a letter from one of the opticians (national chain) in town, in quite a demanding tone, telling me to make an appointment as they had sent me a reminder 4 weeks ago and I had not been in touch...

They sent me a reminder last year (I had new specs in September 2007) and the badgering tone of this most recent letter is enough to make me consider whether I ever want to visit them again. Of course, I am quite likely to do so at some point, if they have another 2 for 1 type deal (actually I had free eye test, I plain pair of glasses and 1 photochromic, all for 105 pounds, in 2007, so it was a good deal in my view), but I don't plan to visit on their timetable, IYSWIM.

It is less than you have had in correspondence, but they need me more than I need them, and they seem to think that high pressure methods might work, where I feel exactly the opposite is true.

Sorry for that little "off at a tangent" but I had wanted to air it and knew someone might feel it was the only way firms might keep going in the current economic climate, had I brought it up in AIBU ! :)

YABVVU,sorry

The whole definition of a charitable act is that you do it altruisticly, without expecting anything in return. That includes thanks.

Fortunately one has a right in law to challenge a will. Given the pressure and level of phone calls / postal mail some charities send out, it may mean that someone could feel pressured to change their will in a particular charity's favour.

In this case (from a web site page) :-

"Dr Gill, a lecturer in statistics at Leeds University, started the legal fight after her 82-year-old mother's death in 2006 when she was stunned to discover the inheritance she had been promised had been given to the animal charity.

Dr Gill argued in court that her mother had been coerced into making the will by her 'domineering' father John, who died in 1999.

Her mother had suffered from a 'social phobia' which meant she could not talk to strangers unless she was with someone she knew and was frightened of open spaces."

I added the bolding. That was the report in the Daily Mail but it was similarly covered on the BBC News website in October 2009.

I agree with the sentiments of bubbleOseven regarding an act of altruism, and that a Thank You would be nice, but no, is not something I would have expected.

It is always nice to be appreciated, but as BS has indicated, some charities regard any donations as a green light to ask for more and more. Under the influences of them now taking on commercial marketing people, the thought of a thank you from a big charity is now something (sadly) one might expect to be the exception not the rule.

It's a sad fact of life that when members of society no longer consider a 'please' or 'thank you' (including our elders, dubiously called our 'betters'), then the level of expectation concerning 'good manners' has to be toned down several notches so as not to be disappointed by the majority, these days.

I know it would be nice to get some appreciation, OP, and applaud RP's husband for his efforts, but if someone has no willingness to offer even a word of thanks for some kindness in passing, the sending of a letter or card is likely also to have dropped off their radar.

As a pedestrian, I go out of my way to invite car drivers to make use of a gap (when I know my speed to cross that gap is limited, and they are holding up a queue of traffic by waiting for me). A minority acknowledge me.

The bulk are selfish b'stards who think of number one all the time, and perhaps did not even consider that I might 'dare' cross in front of their car when they wish to enter the side street. For some drivers, pedestrians are a nuisance and routinely ignored (esp in supermarket car parks where indicators seem to "stop working", or is it the drivers' brains ?)