To never donate to charity via text again

[MoistSponge]

A couple of weeks ago I saw a really heart rending "advert" for a UNICEF appeal for the people suffering in the Southern Sudan.

The images were harrowing, those poor little children, and so I texted and donated a fiver.

Since then I have received three phone calls asking me to donate more - the first two calls were both received while I was driving, so I quickly told them that I already have direct debits set up for my charitable donations and that I wouldn't be able to commit to anything further, but I didn't let them go into their full spiel as I was on Bluetooth.

Tonight I received a call again, and I started straight away telling the man about my direct debits (I sponsor a child in Africa and I have a small monthly DD set up for another charity) and that I wasn't going to be able to give anymore - and then the "hard sell" started. Lots of very emotive language about the children dying and that famine is coming; lots of "buttering me up" telling me I have a good soul and he could hear it beating from me and that I'm clearly very intelligent and blah, blah, blah. It was pretty relentless to be honest and I felt very uncomfortable having to constantly defend myself by telling him that I can't give any more money. In the end I told him that I am on a low income, I'm a single parent to two children and I cannot afford anymore, I told him that five pounds is a lot of money to me but I had still given it with a full heart but that I CANNOT GIVE ANY MORE.

Fucking hell. This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. I did the Race For Life for a few years, raising not huge amounts but a few hundred pounds in sponsorship. I get a phone all every year asking me for more and even though I tell them that I already give to my nominated charities they just won't stop.

I really want to complain to UNICEF TBH, the call came from a fund raising company that they are using, but it almost felt like talking to a bloody double glazing company or worse...timeshare! And the other thing is that they could be using this very aggressive technique on people who are more vulnerable than me and it just feels wrong. It has completely put me off donating by text to anything ever again, AIBU?

I totally agree. It also puts me off donating by text. I also get annoyed when charities you already donate to monthly call asking for more.

The one that really annoys me though is when my undergraduates from my old Oxford college call pretending to want to know about how the college was in my time then asking me for money. I did not go into banking, nor do I have any kind of inheritance coming my way and I am a single mum so they are barking up the wrong tree. They are so persistent though!

Dont understand why anyone gets into conversation with chuggers or charity callers unless they interested in what they want to say or have time. If it happens to me i just the phone down, no apology no bad words, nothing, i just put the phone down. Might be why they dont phone now. [ grin]. I much prefer the local charities like the hospices (which i work in and see their benefit) Never support some of big ones now as alot seem to be political and pay their managers too much. It all seems big business. Never ever do gift aid when i give to charity shops due to dm friend being chased by tax man for £20 as she didnt pay enough tax that year. Shocked they went that much into peoples affairs. I agree doing any giving is best if no one knows who it is.

I understand your frustration but at the same time, these charities do have to use a hard sell to get people to part their cash with nothing in return.

My elderly Mum had an RSPCA chugger at the door a few years ago. Her pension doesn't stretch far and she repeatedly said 'I can't afford it' but he kept on. In the end she said 'No, I'm sorry' and started to close the door. He marched down her path, got to the gate and shouted "So, the lady at number 14 supports animal cruelty then!"
Mum was horrified at his attitude and called me in tears. Fortunately she'd noted the name on his badge. He doesn't work for the RSPCA anymore, of that I made bloody certain.

Thanks LEM, we have an Oxfam charity shop but that's their extent here so I'm still just as confused too . Our normal code is 01481 and we don't have any others.
Perhaps they've hacked into your phone

I had had a monthly DD donation to Macmillan Nurses for a number of years, and received a call like you describe. They asked me to increase my monthly donation, and then kept coming back with different amounts that they would accept. They were so aggressive, I eventually got them off the phone, but I was so upset that I cancelled my donation, and have started giving to another organisation instead. Which upsets me as well, because part of the reason I chose MacMillan as one of the donations I do was because several close friends had received fantastic support from them. They stated in the phone call how many hundreds of thousands they had been paid, I wonder how many other people have been put off enough to cancel donations.

In the end she said 'No, I'm sorry' and started to close the door. He marched down her path, got to the gate and shouted "So, the lady at number 14 supports animal cruelty then!"

As a general question for any legal people, is that slander?

I donate to who I want, when I want.

I work in biomedical research and therefore, anyone knocking or phoning from such charities gets a short spiel about how it makes no economic sense for me to give them £10 per month, for the company to take their fees, for the charity to take their overheads, and to essentially give me back, via project funding (which my employers skims from), a far lower amount of money for me to spend on lab consumables, and to fill my pension pot via both mine and my employer's contributions. I spend tens of pounds a month of my own money on stuff I need for the lab. That's my donation.

Yup, I will now only give to charity via anonymous donation, in a collection tin, or donating stuff e.g. food to the food bank. I am so fed up with the endless phone calls every time I have made a one off donation using my phone.

The worst was when I rang the RSPCA for advice on a domestic rabbit I found in my garden that wasn't mine, they were less than helpful anyway, but they took my number "in case anyone calls the rabbit in missing", and then I got endless phone calls from them asking me for money! I'd think twice next time before contacting them...

My sister worked in a call center that took calls on behalf of charities. She hated having to keep asking 10? 5? 3? Etc but the scripts are written by the charities, so they know full well what is being asked. The calls are also recorded and sample calls are sent off to the charity for quality control.

The call centers have targets and if you are not meeting your target then you will be sacked.
She also saw how the call center staff took 'revenge' if the caller was rude. putting the number back into the call list, 'accidently' ticking yes to sharing details with other companies, or noting down the telephone number? Even if the caller didnt want it recorded.

She says how she would never give to charity via the phone or text!

It makes me really irritated. I still get pestered by post from the Red Cross after sending a donation. By now they must have sent me more crap than the value I donated.

I did donate to MSF recently. So far I've only had one letter from them that said thank you. I really hope they dont send more. I'm far more likely to keep donating to charities that dont get my back up.

I work for a charity. (One which benefits 1 in 5 of the UK population, so not a niche cause, and one which receives no statutory support)

I'd like to ask, in all honesty, where do you (the general public) think charities get their money from? (A genuine question - I see a lot of anti-charity posting here and am interested in public perception of our income streams)

oh and dh keeps getting pestered by phone and letter by his uni college asking for a donation. grrrrr. We are too busy saving up for dds uni expenses to worry about donating to where dh went 100 years ago.

From me, its not being anti-charity, after all I do a large amount of voluntary work myself - but no-one has the right to guilt others into donating what they cant afford or don't want to.

Dido - I think this thread is not so much anti-charity as anti heavy-handed and intrusive funding methods.

I'm a trustee of a small charity and I know times are tough when it comes to fund-raising, but these methods (particularly using commission-driven contractors to solicit donations) are obviously alienating a lot of supporters or potential supporters.

I'm not anti charity but I am very choosy about who I give to now and will always have a look at their accounts to see how much goes to admin and whether there is any profiteering from connected party relationships.

Re msf - I did a text donation to them and I've not heard from them since. Makes me much more likely to give to them again. Also DEC.

I won't be giving to Red Cross or save the children after all the crap I've been getting and I'm finding it really hard to stop it!!! Don't really want to waste hours of my life on the phone trying to get off a distribution list I never asked to be on in the first place!!

I admit I have gone a bit anti the large charities. Not sure I want my donation to go to salaries for executives on £100K plus.

No charity will use a fundraising method that doesn't work. Whilst I understand that not everybody will engage with every fundraising method, if it doesn't bring in funding, we wouldn't do it.

There seems to be little understanding of this big picture - only individual annoyance! (No, I don't particularly like street fundraisers either, but I know why they are there) The work of charities brings enormous value to society at extremely cost-effective rates.

A couple of PSs...

MSF use Direct Response Television (adverts). This has about the worst return on investment of any fundraising method, but no-one complains about it. Not "in your face" but not necessarily a good use of money either?

The £100k salaries certainly don't happen anywhere I have worked! (Wishful thinking...it's only for the very few, very large charities)

Totally agree. Charities make it as difficult as possible to give a 'one off' donation. They are more interested in getting your contact details so they can harass you for the foreseeable future.

I was harassed in the street by a really cheesy young guy who obviously thought that he had great banter a few weeks ago and he wouldn't let it go - he started following me down the street and doing a weird skip to try to get in front of me. He used all of these "buzzwords" to try to get me to sign up and I finally snapped and said, "listen, it pains me a hell of a lot more than pains you that I'm so skint I can't afford to give up £5 a month. It's a good month when I have £50 to myself after I've paid everything I need to. I told you that I wasn't interested in giving you my details, now please move so I can go for my train!"

Even that didn't faze him! He just said, "these plans start at 20p per day, so maybe in the future when you're in a better position financially you'll keep us in mind?"

Argh!

Yep. same here with an NCPCC direct debit. Kept calling to ask for an increase. Made me give up on them in the end.

Your poor mum, SistersofPercy

I had a bloke approach me at a train station about the fate of the Indian tiger - I was already late for picking DD up from nursery and really didn't have time to spare, so I shook my head and kept walking. He ran backwards so he was in front of me and yelled "Don't you CARE about tigers?"

I yelled "NO!" back at him. He was utterly gobsmacked, I think he was so used to shaming people that he wasn't expecting anyone to come back at him...

If a private company used these type of tactics people would be a lot less tolerant.

Just because a charity can do good (and not all charities have to be approved of just because they are a charity) doesn't mean tey should use dubious practices.

Sometimes the calls are misleading and you can be under the impression you are speaking to a person who works for that charity and not a fund raising agency. I have always cancelled the direct debits when asked for more money in this way.

I much prefer giving to local groups and charities now. Once a year I make a donation to one particular small charity and the thank you letter I get does encourage me to keep giving.

Should charities be extracting as much money as possible , despite the impact it has on the individual donators? I'd rather a charity was less efficient but didn't go around harassing people and persuading people to give more than they can afford. I'd rather the charities I donate to treated donators ethically.