Charity

[Flexmoney]

Even the police and firefighter backed callers.

Local news story gave some good numbers...

88% goes to the tele-market firm (agreed on rate).  And, in reality, only 3 cents on the dollar was making it to the actual named charity (in this case, police dogs...trainging and replacement).

[spook]

Yeah Flex, that sucks. My country (The Netherlands) spends a ton of money on charity and third world help. And we also have a big problem getting the money to where it's intended to go. When I look at the effort made to do that and see that only a third gets to the right people, it makes me sad.

But keep in mind that the charity itself is not bad, it's the fact that the whole system fails that makes it all suck bigtime. 88% to the telemarketeers? That's just plain insane!

[EricW]

I am SOOOOO glad I always blow those guys off now.  That's just plain annoying.  

What really tweaks me is that emergency services feel like they need to resort to this kind of crap in the first place.  People just need to cough up the dough for emergency services via taxes and levies.  Otherwise, we're going to end up like Mexico, where people get pulled over for no other reason than to "tip" the officer to subsidize his below-poverty-level income.

Anybody want to bet that school fund-raisers are equally corrupt enterprises?

[SiG Lady]

There is so-o-o-o much waste in school adminstration and so-called fund-raising that ya' GOTTA wonder where the money is going! Many schools I've been involved with--or weaseled info out of--were either administratively top-heavy to an absurd degree OR spending valuable funds on the damndest, stupidest, unbelievable things! Gawd!!

And: I just plain don't donate to charities as such. The concept is all fuzzy and warm but the bottom line is hard, unrealistic and wasteful.

Pet peeve time: Telemarketing in general!!!!!

PS--I'm ba-a-a-a-a-ck....!  Complete with new bionic hip!  Whatta trip it's been! (but how cool not to hurt any more!!)

[BSeevers]

SigLady welcome back

I will never buy or donate anything telemarketed. If we all did this there would be no more calls.

[Steve Moneypenny]

Something I have found that sort of works is "take my name off of your calling list" which they are obligated to do, this can be done nicely, as to not give the telemarketer a bad day, or rudely to get them back for interupting whatever it was you didn't want interupted, or being overly zealous and rude themselves.

I have not nor will i ever buy anything from a telemarketer. i think what they are doing to the police/fire/rescue is horrible, as with other charities. we need some way of getting the money directly there.

[SiG Lady]

I've found that the direct approach works well in charitable giving. Just walk in the door of whichever one in town you feel good about and tell them you want to write them a check. Just the looks on their faces is worth the donation.

Telemarketing has got to be one of the worst ideas our species has ever perpetrated upon itself. If it were the last gig on earth I'd never do it for a living.