in thinking that, if you donate to a charity, they should not send you letters asking for more money?

[LadySybilDeChocolate]

I'm quite irritated to be honest. I have a monthly DD set up to a 'wildlife' charity. I'm being bombarded with emails and, today, I've received a letter asking me to increase my donation! AIBU to cancel the DD altogether?

I told one well known homelessness charity that if they kept ringing me I would cancel my direct debit. They haven't rung again.

IFAW - really annoys me - I have contacted them numerous times and still they send crap, this is such a waste of money. I am seriously considering cancelling my monthly subs.

I have an intense dislike of how they target people. What if the person donating is a kind soul who donates most of her/his income to other charities? I can easily see how vulnerable people who will agree to anything can end up with nothing themselves because they have been exploited in this way.

This is the reason I stopped donating to Oxfam. I was getting constant phone calls abs emails, despite asking them to stop. I finally told them I would never donate to them again if they didn't stop calling. They called again, so I cancelled my dd. I donate to other charities, but no one has harassed e as much as them.

Direct marketing is the most cost-effective and efficient use of a charity's marketing funds. It's also the source of millions of pounds of charitable income and dramatically increases the amount of money available for actual charitable expenditure.

With that in mind, it's unreasonable in my view to be all outraged that they do it and cancel immediately in a huff.

Having said that, if you (anyone, not OP specifically) request to be removed from their direct mail list/phone list and they refuse, or if they adopt an unprofessional hard-sell approach on the phone, you should complain and yes cancel if you want to.

And yes the pens etc are very annoying but statistically campaigns with those types of enclosures do better, so that's why they do it.

YANBU. My grandma sent a donation to a charity, they then bombarded her, including pens and T shirts in the post etc (we are giving you this T shirt as a gift, but it is worth x amount). She basically said never again was she giving to this charity. I feel the same.

I hate the suffering guilt trip leaflets sent out. If I have any spare money to give to a charity it is anonymous, and online.

shouldnot the T shirt thing is very poor practice, and the charity is on shaky grounds doing it. I don't blame your grandma at all.

If you remember the name of the charity it might be worth reporting them to the Fundraising Standards Board www.frsb.org.uk

Onesunnymorningin012 - It was Diabetes UK.

She hasn't given any further donations.

YANBU, I have cancelled dd's for the same reason. I found NSPCC to be the worst I have dealt with.

YANBU - I'm afraid I cancelled my regular DD for exactly the same reason. I completely understand why we are targeted but the phone calls I received made me feel very uncomfortable - having explained I could not really afford to give more, you get the 'well how about just xxx". I'm afraid, after a few of these calls who I think were from outsourced telemarketing companies (?), but nevertheless I was very disappointed with the charity, whom I would have longed to support more but honestly couldn't. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth

Yep my friend had this from Friends of the Earth. After signing up for donations she kept getting phone calls asking for more. dont yet know whether shes cancelled it though.

Last year the Red Cross phoned me up to thank me for my donation. I pointed out that I was very unhappy because they send some lovely cards, tags etc and I sent them a donation with a letter saying that I didn't like it and if they did it again I wouldn't be donating.
I told him this in the phone call, I said that I thought that it was a good cause but I wanted to choose my charity and it was emotional blackmail. He kept telling me it was just a 'thank you' for past support.
This Christmas I got the same -more nice cards etc. I kept them-I didn't send money-they had been told and they didn't listen.
They have lost possible future donations and quite possibly will waste more money sending me nice cards next Christmas.

Exotic, it would probably cost them more in admin to keep track of who didn't want cards and then make sure they didn't get sent any. It a silly system, and I can't see how it works for them, but presumably it must do. Who would only keep donating if they received a pack of crappy cards though?

if it's just one letter every so often then that's tolerable, but if it's phonecalls, I would find that too intrusive. I've donated online to MSF, get the odd appeal e-mail, which I am fine about, but no other contact, so I can recommend them for minimal hassle!

I cancelled Greenpeace DD recently. We could barely afford it and I had signed up on the condition that they did NOT harrass me for further money with guilt trips (had been a member years ago so knew it was likely). They agreed but, surprise surprise, the phone calls etc started. Even since I cancelled, they have been on the phone a few times. I am pissed off with them.

We also have a DD to World Vision to sponsor a little boy in Malawi (ooh, I'm like Madonna!) and they are very good and never ask for extra money.

Re the NSPCC - I used to have a DD with them and I found all the free gifts like badges/pens saying 'I'm against abuse' etc very annoying. I hated my money going on that shite and as someone who has been abused themselves, I find it really irritating. As if pens etc are going to stop your father beating the crap out of you ffs. I think in the NSPCC's case it was those pens that made me cancel. Actually, what do the NSPCC actually do? I've never come across anything and I say that as a person who's been abused and had counselling etc and also as someone who taught in challenging inner city schools.

YANBU, I'll never donate to shelter again (which is a shame) because they are SO aggressive at getting more money out of you!

I explained nicely to the man on the phone that I directly know people who've been homeless so understand the need (hence the donation) but as my own income is so variable I'ld be risking my OWN families security in having a home if I donated monthly, I gave what I could when I could - que shock tactic horror stories about the homeless children who need my monthly direct debit - WTF shows how much clean handed phone boy actually cares about children and their security in their homes if what I'ld explained hadn't gone in!

familY's

My husband made two donations to charity at Christmas. He has a CAF account which his employer contribute double to so it's a really great way of giving. One of the charities (Unicef) sent him a lovely letter thanking him for his donation and also thanked us for attending a carol concert they'd organised (so it was obviously a bit personalised). The other charity (British Red Cross) sent him a letter which said thank you for donation but then immediately asked him to set up a DD (which obviously he isn't going to do because of CAF account) for a much smaller amount than he'd already given. Guess which one we'll be giving to next time...

YANBU. I have been called by Cancer Research UK at 8.30pm a couple of times, mid afternoon on a Sunday, lunchtime on a Saturday when I am trying to feed my DD ... they ask if I can increase my direct debit, then when I tell them it's clearly not a good time to call they try to rearrange for another time, despite me telling them I am perfectly capable of increasing my direct debit if I want to, myself. I have told them not to call me directly any more but they seem to have forgotten they agreed to leave me alone. I am very close to cancelling my donation but I do really want to support the charity, just not have them hassle me so much for more money.

I had this. I donated via text to an animal shelter at Christmas, and got a phone call in early January from a fundraiser. I'm afraid I was quite brusque.

I can understand why they do it, but it's annoying.

It's like that phrase, 'don't bite the hand that feeds you'.

They lose a lot of goodwill though, Iusetoomuchkitchenroll, they won't get any more. I don't think it costs too much just to delete a name on the mailing list.

Have to say I agree with flowery - individual giving is a charity's best source of income and it's in their best interests to try and max it out. People giving charities a set amount per month makes it much easier to plan work and campaigns than a one-off donation (which may be larger than the monthly donations combined!) as it's regular income. And people are more likely to increase their donation if they currently give, rather than non-donors beginning to donate.

But YANBU if they are hassling you, that's really not on.

YANBU,
you can block future emails from them using sweep on hotmail, or have them put straight into their own folder, and if they call tyou you can ask them to remove you from their callimg list then and there. I really do not lie it when they are pushy espeically when they act this way to old people who are more vunerable.
It is also tempting to post them back their letters as return to sender.

Tell them how much it's annoying you.

It's a difficult balance for them to get right. The reality is that it's much easier and cheaper to raise money from existing donors or people who have shown some interest, than by trying to interest everyone. So in a way, they are using your contribution efficiently to raise as much as they can.

Existing donors are very valuable though, especially if they stay with the charity for a long time. In the first year much of your contribution can go on the set-up admin, membership pack and so on, so it's usually from year 2 that you are valuable. Therefore they should really want you to stay. Keeping existing members is much more efficient than recruiting new ones.

Reliable members are especially valuable for charities that rely heavily on raising funds from grants - always short-term and for a particular purpose - for which the 'unrestricted funds' from memberships give them freedom to pursue their core charitable objectives, as well as to use as the core funding to match a big grant against. Membership numbers are important to campaigning charities too.

So, it's in their interests to keep you and if they are behaving in a way that puts you off, it might help to tell them, or they'll never know and pull the balance back to something more acceptable.

Btw OP, I believe I remember you from your moving house thread and happen to know that, if you'd like to swap your penguin for an otter, there are some nice, very non-hassly people locally who could do that for you!