ENOUGH...of the address labels, calenders and phone calls

[Crazy Dave]

I've griped about this before but it's only getting worse. You donate what you can to different charities, you renew your memberships and send a little extra to various groups but all year long you get sent stuff you never asked for asking you for more money. There's one organization that even sends me somewhat nasty follow-up letters that say, "We sent you some really nice things and you didn't send us anything back". Then there's one environmental group I've been a member of that wastes so much paper and my time with phone calls wanting even more money.

Then, there's the charities that have "minimum contributions". They don't want your $10, they want you to send them $30 a month.

[ThomCat]

1. Every. One. Of. Them.

x(

It seems like they waste every dollar I send them printing and sending more shit to demand more money.

[Crazy Dave]

4. And the salaries of their CEO's

See #3 :-(

[stuntcat]

2. I've been calling them

I limit my giving to 5 organizations that help animals and that's IT, anyone else who calls I tell them it's a lost cause to bother with me and I've called the orgs I support and told them NOT to send me any mail except my renewal letters. For everybody else I call them when I get the mail and tell them to stop it.
It takes some effort to stop this stuff, I bet there are a million people getting that kind of mail and just throwing it away without looking. Not you I mean, you look at the stuff and *know how dumb it is sending so much trash.
I do use the free nature calenders at least.
It's taken a lot of phone calls and mean letters to get the mail under control x(

[Crazy Dave]

3. That and sharing the wealth

Or lack of in my case. What little I have to spread around can't all just go to one organization.

Then when you learn that their CEO's make six digit incomes it makes you wonder who some of them are really looking out for.

2007 CEO Compensation Study
August 1, 2007

The top leaders of the 5,2421 largest charities in America earn an average salary of $145,2702. This represents a modest pay raise of 2.34% over the previous year studied. All together, their salaries add up to over $730 million. Although this is a considerable amount of money, CEO compensation accounts for just 3.37% of the average organization's spending.




http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/studies.ceo.htm

[Zuiderelle]

5. A six-digit income isn't what it used to be.

Those salaries seem rather tame to me, given the responsibility and stress of being a CEO (in most cases). Compared to average American CEO salaries in general, these are reasonable. Especially since their salaries average less than 4% of the organization's spending.

[Crazy Dave]

7. I work harder now for less

Pay me what I make now and I'll do their job for them but I guess it's hard to mingle with the politicians and large donors if you are not one of "them". My life would still be the same and I'd be the same person if I make $60k a year or $300k a year. But I guess if I make the $300k a year I'd get to live in a house and drive a car that's too big while I tell people to send me their money.

[Zuiderelle]

8. It could be argued that a lot of people work "harder" than a CEO.

But the CEO is bringing a lot of education and experience and ability to manage a large organization to the table. If the salary isn't high enough, the charity wouldn't be able to attract the best talent in that position.

I'm sure many CEOs of charities could make a hell of a lot more if they chose to be a CEO of a corporation instead, but they've chosen the charity because of what it means to them personally and ethically.

[electron_blue]

6. quit giving $10 here and there to lots of different charities, and the mailings should go down.

Decide what you plan to give during the year and divide it up among just a handful of charities and leave it at that. It keeps the junk mailing down, is easier to track for taxes and probably makes more of an impact to those agencies. I can't tell you how many times I regretted giving $10 to some group who then spent well over $20 over the next several years coming after me to give more. Now I just have ~4 places where my money goes. And none of them sends me address labels.

[Iggo]

9. I may be a dick, but...

...when it comes to charitable donations, once they start demanding money, I stop giving it.


(Did I just call myself a "dick-butt"? Yikes.)