Charities sending unsolicited trinkets following donations

FatherTireseus

Jaybee_16 said:

I used to donate items to my local Cancer Research shop and used their gift aid system thinking it would help in some small way.
This resulted in letters arriving by post telling me that certain items had raised £5.60 or whatever amount it was. These letters would appear from time to time.
All I could think of is someone had to process the letters, the charity had the cost of paper, envelope and postage which used to annoy me so I donated elsewhere without giving them my details.

Guess I'm an old misery too.  

My understanding of why they do this is because a charity can only reclaim gift aid on cash donations.  So if you donate a bag of clothes or books and they sell for a tenner, to be able to reclaim the gift aid,  the charity uses a scheme called Retail Gift Aid.

What this means is that when you give your bag of stuff to the charity you are actually asking them to sell the goods on your behalf. They have to write to you telling you how much the goods have raised and they are allowed to deduct a commission. 

Your letter probably said something like "We have raised £10 from the sale of your goods net of commission and if you want to donate this money to our charity you need do nothing".

What you could actually do is ask them for the amount they've raised in sales less commission,  although when I've donated in this way, the email hasn't explicitly said that.  Otherwise if you don't reply they take it as a donation. 

I get these notifications by email which at least saves the charity the cost of a stamp.

Murphybear

There is one charity that sends a pack of Christmas cards.  They are hoping that you will pay for them but don’t have the right to demand payment.  I hang on to them in case I need any extra cards.  I have contacted them in the past to tell them to desist.

I worked for a charity for a few years and I’m pleased to say we didn’t go down the “free gift” line.  

The most annoying thing that happened to me was applying for a job with a charity then getting mail from them asking for donations.  This contravened the Data Protection Act (at the time) so I wrote to them and they took me off the mailing list. 

FatherTireseus

Murphybear said:

The most annoying thing that happened to me was applying for a job with a charity then getting mail from them asking for donations.  This contravened the Data Protection Act (at the time) so I wrote to them and they took me off the mailing list. 

That’s very cheeky of them!  I’d have done the same thing, to ask to be removed from the mailing list.

A friend of mine works for a charity and also donates to them.  She wasn’t best pleased to be called up by one of their fundraising team asking her to increase her donation, particularly as she works well over her contracted hours.

Martin_the_Unjust

It seems to me that most large charities are more business than charity unfortunately.

Undervalued

Martin_the_Unjust said:

It seems to me that most large charities are more business than charity unfortunately.

Indeed. In fact I would say all rather than most large charities.

pulliptears

And right on cue I've had Christmas cards sent from the Red Cross today.
What an utter waste.

ElefantEd

Undervalued said:

Martin_the_Unjust said:

It seems to me that most large charities are more business than charity unfortunately.

Indeed. In fact I would say all rather than most large charities.

Do you have any evidence for this? It seems a bold assertion to make.

NBLondon

It must work though...  the thinking being that sending all this costs £X but encourages £3X in further donations.

Undervalued

ElefantEd said:

Undervalued said:

Martin_the_Unjust said:

It seems to me that most large charities are more business than charity unfortunately.

Indeed. In fact I would say all rather than most large charities.

Do you have any evidence for this? It seems a bold assertion to make.

It is inevitable. Once a charity grows beyond a size that can be run and "staffed" entirely by volunteers, some or all of the people involved are doing it as a paid job / career. So their interest is, at best, split between advancing the charity's objectives and increasing their own salary and career prospects. 

Now that may generate more revenue to distribute to charitable work than volunteers would manage on their own in which case it may be justifiable. Those who donate have to decide if they are happy with an often very small percentage of their donation actually reaching the end cause. 

RogerBareford

FatherTireseus said:

Is it just me, or does anyone else get annoyed about charities wasting money I've donated on sending me things I don't want?

I donated recently to a hospice in memory of an aunt who'd ended her days there.   They have a Christmas campaign to raise funds each year.

Each year they have sent out a plastic credit card sized card with the dedication I'd made printed on it (also visible on the website).  This year it came with a pin badge.  I didn't want either and they've gone in the bin, being made of stuff that would be rather difficult to compost.

Now I know that one or two fewer bits of plastic aren't going to solve the climate emergency but I have in the past asked them to at least give donators the option of whether or not to receive this stuff.  When I made my donation online there was no mention of receiving anything (some years they gave you the choice of bits of plastic stuff) and I thought 'great, maybe they've stopped sending stuff out'.  Alas today the plastic card and pin badge arrived and I've now asked them to take me off their mailing lists.

If they at least gave the choice it wouldn't be so bad but I hate the thought they've spent some of my money on sending me things I don't want without giving me the option to opt out.  

So go on, tell me I am the biggest Christmas Grinch out there... ;-)

I'm sure charities will have found that by sending out these letters and trinkets it results in an overall increase in donations from people even after the cost of the postage etc. So even though you don't want them it must work on a good amount of people.