Vanisle_BC
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Posts: 1353
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:02 pm
Location: Port Alberni, B.C. Canada, Zone 7 (+?)

Fund raising methods

In the hope of prompting a donation, Canadian Wildlife Federation has sent me:

1 - 8x10 glossy calendar with 14 glossy pages of full-colour photographs
2- sheets of glossy stick-on Christmas labels, all with different full-colour artwork.
5 - glossy full colour Christmas cards, all different
5 - very fancy envelopes with full colour artwork, all different
1 - cheesy 'certificate of appreciation' for anticipated donation
4 - tear-off triple match vouchers for donations of varying amounts - $25 up to unspecified
2- notepads with full colour artwork borders
1- postage paid envelope;
- all in a large, thick cardboard envelope, for a total weight slightly over half a pound.

I have little use for these unsolicited items and and absolutely no need for them. I am keen to do whatever I can to save the planet including its wild life, but I doubt this kind of over-cosumption is helpful to the animals - or to the rest of us. It certainly makes me unlikely to contribute. It makes me angry.

HoneyBerry
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Posts: 1216
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:10 pm
Location: Zone 8A Western Washington State

Yes, so wasteful.
Offends me too.
Has such a corporate flavor to it.
Probably you are on a mailing list of people who are likely to donate.
It reminds me of a time when I made one time donation to the Red Cross in New York to help out the 911 responders. I ended up regretting it because I received a flood of ‘please donate’ type junk mail after that. It took me a long time to get my name off of those mailing lists.

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Dissily Mordentroge
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Posts: 137
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:36 am

‘Charity’ has become yet another capitalist enterprise. Sad, because the money collected often doesn’t go where it’s claimed to.

Vanisle_BC
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Posts: 1353
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:02 pm
Location: Port Alberni, B.C. Canada, Zone 7 (+?)

I've been receiving so many repeated donation requests - usually with unwanted 'gifts' from socks to nickels & quarters - that I've begun marking them 'RTS' (return to sender) in red marker and putting them back in the mailbox unopened. Where appropriate I've explained on the outside of the package that if they don't stop pestering me I will no longer send them my annual, voluntary donation.

HoneyBerry
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Posts: 1216
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:10 pm
Location: Zone 8A Western Washington State

I went through the same thing a long time ago, back in about year 2000. I also tried to send unwanted mail back to the senders. The post office told me that they only return first class mail. The rest goes in the garbage. That’s in the U. S. I don’t know how it works for Canada.
One thing that worked for me was to use postage paid envelopes that are sometimes included with junk mail. I stuffed the postage paid envelopes with as much paper and cardboard as I could and sent them back to the sender. I included a big note that said REMOVE FROM MAILING LIST. The envelopes weighed over 2 ounces, so very costly for the junk mailer. I stopped receiving the unwanted mail right away, so this tactic worked.
A coworker in Seattle stuffed postage paid junk mail envelopes with sticky cake frosting and stinky tuna fish. So I was told. I never actually saw this. I had a hard time imagining sending food, especially tuna fish, in paper envelopes.

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Dissily Mordentroge
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Posts: 137
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:36 am

I’ve reacted in the same way returning piles of unsolicited junk to charities. Last year I became curious about one particular charity and attempted to discover what percentage of donation proceeds eventually got to the supposed recipients only to learn 55% of proceeds were skimmed off by a private fund raising company.
For now I’ve partly solved my problem by becoming a volunteer phone councillor for a group I know isn’t feathering its own nest and campaigning for the Australian Gov’t to be more generous with it’s foreign aid which has been reduced radically by the present gov’t. A Go’vt whose leader makes a great fuss about being ‘a good christian’.



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