This is part observation, part rant. The third part is actually sadness at the waste of resources.
First, the observation – over the last two weeks, our mailbox has had numerous Christmas Cards with the occasional holiday card tossed in from the various organizations to which we have donated in the past year. All the email ones are similar (and also include any merchant whose website I might have visited in this or the last century).
There is a pattern. First you are thanked for your support, the ongoing pain and need of whatever is their particular mission is second, and the third is a request for more money. Sometimes it is polite, sometimes that card envelope also includes a pledge form and a return envelope. Occasionally those two parts arrive separately so as to not taint the holiday greeting.
It is much easier to deal with the emailed requests – I can read or delete. Minimal resources are used. What is more, I can usually tell by which email account the request arrives in, exactly where they obtained my email. Few trees were wasted in the process, postal carriers were not overwhelmed by thousands of cards, and my paper bin is not filled to over flowing.
Asking them to not mail/email me with a side order of “if you persist in this behavior, I will stop donating” doesn’t work. I have done that; they haven’t taken me off the list. Instead I get the “please come back.”
Now, I will just leave you with the thought of how much time, money, and resources are wasted on those mailed cards and requests. Money that is not going into whatever fund to which you had donated. People resources that could be devoted to their actual mission. There are some organizations which are worse than others – with their multiple requests for money over the year. Those, if I am the one picking up the mail, go straight into the paper recycle and never enter the house. How many tons of paper are wasted? The cards don’t even make good floss drops!
I would really like to see this particular holiday season be left to those for whom it has meaning and not be yet another opportunity for exploitation. May you have a quiet day, connecting with family and friends.
Totally with you on this one.