To think charities should not give away stuff in mass mailings?

[LaurieFairyCake]

I've just received a mass mailing (not addressed to anyone) with 2 gift cards and 2 coasters in it encouraging people to support the (very worthwhile) charity.

I'm not keen on the mass mailings for the following reasons:

1. I can't bear waste - most people I think will just bin 'junk' mail not addressed to them - so thats 2 coasters and 2 gift cards and envelopes in the bin - hardly environmentally conscious.

1. It discourages me giving to this charity as I assume a couple of pounds will probably only pay for a streets worth of this mass mailing

What do you think?

For example, MSF - one of the charities I support - spends 10p per £1 on fund-raising activities. That, I think is good going.

\link{http://www.msf.org.uk/annualaccounts.aspx\MSF accounts}

Ok so I clicked your link, hate downloading PDF's on my phone! But through voluntary donations such as people signing up to direct debits etc they raised over 116m so still a healthy 'profit' before you even take into account the other funds raised.

Money well spent obviously.

I think just under £113 million from the report.

I think it's emotional blackmail as well and I dislike it.

I mean what are you supposed to do with the stuff? If you bin it you've wasted it, and if you use it, you feel awful for using something that says 'I support the donkey sanctuary' or whatever when actually, you've never sent them a penny because you can't really afford to, or you hate donkeys or something.

It's just wrong. It's like buying someone a present then asking them to babysit.

I got that one too. To be fair, I did leave the information on the table to read out of interest, probably partly because of the coasters (which were ugly and went in the 'crap to donate to school tombola box') but I had no intention of donating because I already know what charities I support.

But then I had a tidy up and threw the info away because it had been on the pile and unread for about two weeks.

YANBU. I can't believe that ugly coasters and ugly cards make more money for the charity than a simple biro would.

Sadly charity's often get funding for certain projects. They may have had a company give a big donation but it has to be used for x, y and z. Not many companies give in attached funding, so in all likelihood that's what's paid for the mail drop.

Got my coasters today!

YABU. It might seem "wasteful" of the charity's funds. However they must find that enough people reply to make it worthwhile. Maybe there's some subconscious thing that for enough people, if they receive a gift (however small and tacky) they want to do something good in return, in this case making a donation.