Do you suffer from charity fatigue?

Capt Lightning

Capt Lightning

Well-known Member
Location
Historic Buchan, Scotland
Half way through November and I'm getting sick of the begging ads. on TV. Please give £5 or £10 or whatever.. And then there's various animal charities featuring creatures with soppy names like Sweetheart or Angel. Never a vicious brute called Satan.
I'm sure that there are plenty of deserving causes, but this constant pleading for donations just turns me off.
 

We get solicitations in the mail every day, all year long. Some days we get all advertising and no actual mail. A great deal of it is from the same 8 or 10 organizations, begging for money over and over and over again. And sometimes with "free gifts" included - note pads, greeting cards, gift wrap paper, socks with logos on them, and on and on.

I have to wonder what percent of their budgets go to office space, staff, and advertising, and how much actually goes to the work they claim to be doing.
 
Capt Lightning said:
Half way through November and I'm getting sick of the begging ads. on TV. Please give £5 or £10 or whatever.. And then there's various animal charities featuring creatures with soppy names like Sweetheart or Angel. Never a vicious brute called Satan.
I'm sure that there are plenty of deserving causes, but this constant pleading for donations just turns me off.
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if only it was £5.... long gone are those days...now it's £29...£39... and the Salvation army have got an option for you to tick a box online to pay £168.00 as a donation...absolutely appalling.

if only the money was going to the causes it 's appealing for....
 

Capt Lightning said:
Half way through November and I'm getting sick of the begging ads. on TV. Please give £5 or £10 or whatever.. And then there's various animal charities featuring creatures with soppy names like Sweetheart or Angel. Never a vicious brute called Satan.
I'm sure that there are plenty of deserving causes, but this constant pleading for donations just turns me off.
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Once a person donates to an organization, that person stays on their mailing list forever.

When I can afford it, the ones I donate to are fairly local and I know where the money goes.

I will probably get put on the firing line for saying I only donate to the animal organizations, but 99% of the people who donate, do so for some form of human charity, so I feel like those get “covered”.

When Helene hit the Carolinas and East Tennessee, I donated to the livestock thru IFAW; I was able to designate where my money went. Yes, they still send me texts but I just delete them. Their asking for donations are a lot less grief than the scam calls, texts, emails,letters I get wanting to buy my farm land😡
 
Capt Lightning said:
Half way through November and I'm getting sick of the begging ads. on TV. Please give £5 or £10 or whatever.. And then there's various animal charities featuring creatures with soppy names like Sweetheart or Angel. Never a vicious brute called Satan.
I'm sure that there are plenty of deserving causes, but this constant pleading for donations just turns me off.
Click to expand...

The really sad ads break my heart (starving children, abused animals), especially since most big charities (the ones that can afford a commercial) are known for keeping more of the donations than they give to the actual cause.

I don't want to sound cynical, but when it comes to "charity" .... I am a bit. I give at church, but no longer give to things like United Way etc.
 
Poster’s question…..Do you suffer from charity fatigue?
Yes, charity fatigue, Christmas fatigue, Christmas music in November……it’s too much. The only thing I do enjoy about Christmas (and it is something after all my negativity) is the Christmas lights – or should I have said holiday lights just to be safe.
 
Since I mostly stream using ad free platforms, I haven't seen any ads for charities except for the occasional St. Jude, for which I'm already a donor. I still get snail mail solicitations, but not as many as I used to. I just take my name off and throw them away. I got charity fatigue a couple of years ago when I made the mistake of donating to Feeding America. After that I was inundated with several solicitations from similar charities. I sent the solicitations back marked...Please take me off your list" Eventually, most stopped.
 
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It’s sad that poor people have become a commodity and that pain and suffering have been turned into a lucrative business career for many.

As an example, in our city we have a soup kitchen that is now housed in a beautifully renovated historic church with state of the art restaurant equipment, new vans, highly paid executives, a board of directors, and an eye popping annual budget. It feels like the mission to simply feed the poor has become secondary to the business of feeding the poor.

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Do what feels right and try not to use situations like this as an excuse to do nothing.
 
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Aunt Bea said:
It’s sad that poor people have become a commodity and that pain and suffering have been turned into a lucrative business career for many.

As an example, in our city we have a soup kitchen that is now housed in a beautifully renovated historic church with state of the art restaurant equipment, new vans, highly paid executives, a board of directors, and an eye popping annual budget. It feels like the mission to simply feed the poor has become secondary to the business of feeding the poor.

View attachment 467034

Do what feels right and try not to use situations like this as an excuse to do nothing.
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I believe this outfit has gone over and above their top.
 
Whenever I get any begging letters I take my name and address off and put the letters in the bin. As for my name and address bits, they go into the shredder.

If I have people knocking at the door asking for donations, I tell them that 'charity begins at home', and close the door on them. As an old age pensioner, I reckon I've paid my dues to society and now it's time for them to find someone else to pester.
 
I donate to North Texas Food Bank, which is frequently on local news distributing food to those in need, and partners with businesses such as 7-Eleven ,Capital One, Texas Instruments, Walmart, and Sam's Club. Those organizations and others periodically sponsor NTFB programs, which triple any private donations they receive. NTFB also donates some of the food distributed by my church, so I know first hand the work they do.
 
I get snail mail from several charities every week and now am getting even more because of the holidays coming up. I used to get mad but just throw them straight in the trash 🗑️ now .

I used to donate to a few charities but stopped because I don't know what they do with that money 💰 I don't trust any of them anymore.
 
The one that upsets me the most, and I have to change the channel when it comes on, is the one asking for help to “virtually” save the elephants. ….What?!!
They are hoping to pocket some money. .. and in the meantime, the terrible lives of Elephants isn’t changed.

I guess they don’t think the one for saving abused and starving dogs gets our attention anymore.
 
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For ads on TV/Internet, I just hit the mute key.

The only donations I make now are to local non-profits, i.e., the shelter shoppe (thrift store), the food bank, and occasionally an individual. I never ask for a receipt and I do this without giving my name.

One time, I was parked in a Taco Bell parking lot. In the vacant lot next to it, there was a middle aged couple in their old beater car. It was obvious they were living in it. The man had the hood up, became very angry, yelling and kicking the car. It appeared they were stranded. They did not see me sitting in my car.

I walked over, spoke to him (looks like you're in a pickle). He was still angry but in control. So I gave him several hundred dollars. He tried refusing it but I told him I had been in similar situations in the bad old days. The sad part is his attitude immediately changed. He was floored to the point of verging on tears. Why? Because people just don't help each other much anymore. I told him to Pay it forward, if you can and walked away.
 
raybar said:
We get solicitations in the mail every day, all year long. Some days we get all advertising and no actual mail. A great deal of it is from the same 8 or 10 organizations, begging for money over and over and over again. And sometimes with "free gifts" included - note pads, greeting cards, gift wrap paper, socks with logos on them, and on and on.

I have to wonder what percent of their budgets go to office space, staff, and advertising, and how much actually goes to the work they claim to be doing.
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I think tht information is available on all the major charities.
 
I don't know if it's available for the US, but in the UK and EU there's a company called "mydatachoices.co.uk" who can suppress your data so that it can't be used by anyone trying to send stuff to you by post. I just went on there a few minutes ago and requested that my data be suppressed.

It does seem strange that I have to ask for it to be "suppressed" rather than removed, but that was the language used on the website.

I doubt if it's a scam site as it was mentioned in the small print on the Salvation Army letter that came through my letterbox yesterday, begging for money. The letter is now in the bin and the bits with my name on are in the shredder.
 
The Salvation Army is one of the few charities that I give regularly to. They only spend 11% on salaries and the rest goes directly to help people. Part of the reason is because the head of the Salvation Army in each city is a team with their wife and they take a small salary. They view it as a religious calling and are provided a house to live in and a retirement once they can no longer work.

I’ve spent my career in human services and they have helped many of our clients from being homeless. They have programs for substance abusers where they house and feed them for up to six months.

They do require people to attend church once a week and AA meetings and I consider that a small price to pay for what they are doing. They put them to work in their stores and warehouses, which is good as they learn some job skills also. If they have actual job openings, they will hire from among their clients.
 

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