to find charity adverts inappropriate

[stickysausages]

You know, the heart strings hungry children, drinking dirty water, poor mistreated animals...

They're on during kid's tv now too...

Is this the best way to attract donations? It turns me right off.... literally.

Ironically, the children are drinking dirty water and being hungry while your child watches kid's TV. It's not just the advert you know, it's life for some. Just give some money and the guilt/annoyance/sadness will magically disappear.

And, unfortunately charities do their research and are pretty good at finding the best ways to extract money from us.

I don't find them inappropriate but i donate to the charities of my choice and ignore the ones on television, I also fast forward through the ads anyway because they're all so annoying. I prefer BBC 3 (and other BBcs) because of no ads (when real time watching), Sky Atlantic is the worst they always cut the Walking dead at an annoying moment and the ads are frequent and long.

I guess they must work because the charities have to justify their overheads.Mind you I don't think chuggers work either but there seems to be loads of those annoyances about.

The thing I feel though, is that a donation from me is a drop in the ocean... it doesn't tackle any root causes... it's just a massive guilt trip.

But if everyone thinks that their donation is "just a drop in the ocean" and therefore doesn't bother the charity soon runs out of money to fund their cause. Of course you should donate if it's a cause that you believe in. They put the adverts on at times to maximise exposure and hopefully increase donations, can you blame them?

I signed up for a working animals one and Save The Children after seeing ads on TV, so they do work.

Well, sticky then just pick a very small, grass roots cause. Or maybe Kiva if you want to see the people you help. Or Freedom From Fistula where 100% of donations are used for projects (and they change people's lives completely).

If not, volunteer. Get stuck in and you will feel better.

Do you know what the root causes are? If so, change them, if not, read up.

Sorry, I should have said I volunteer for the local hospice, and support Mary's meals,which provides food in Africa, I like both causes because they're quite straightforward & the money/benefits go straight there iykwim.

I'm not totally cold hearted! I just hate these adverts!

The root causes in many places is government corruption, which I can't change :(

That's not the root cause. The root cause is colonialism and the subversion of natural nation formation which led to government corruption. Divide and conquer, the slave trades throughout the world, mono-culture and reliance on a capitalist system which values gold, diamonds and cash crops above feeding people. Tough to sort being as you would have to invent a time machine.

However, you are making a difference to people. Remember that. There were people in MIL's hospice that were utterly, unbelievably, wonderfully awesome and I cannot thank them enough. They made a really dreadful time bearable.

What I hate is when i donate something and then for the rest of my life the charity spends good money posting me rubbish I don't want/use/need - pens, cards, stickers etc hoping to emote some more cash out of me.

Eventually they spend more money sending me Crap than I donated.

So I now prefer to donate anonymously or when I have the option to tick a box saying "we promised never to post you stuff".

I'm sure it works for some people. I find it upsetting and coercive.