Re: My charitable contributions

Dear Not-for-profit organization that I contribute my dollars to annually,

    First off, let me say that I love and support your cause. For this reason, I give a reasonable number of my hard-earned dollars to you each year. I renew my annual membership each October, and have for several years. You get this money from me each and every year, and I assume that as my life progresses and I (hopefully) move up in income level, you will receive more and more funding from me, but for now I do what I can.

    You can count on me. So it is wholly unnecessary for you to send me a membership drive packet in the mail every three weeks. Seriously, I am already a member. If for some reason I get a raise or win the lottery, I will not forget about my commitment to you. So STOP ALREADY with the junk mail. I do not need to open my mailbox only to be guilt tripped by your oh-so-well-thought-out spam letters depicting sad-eyed puppies and kittens who will surely die horribly painful deaths unless I join your organization. (Which, as I have pointed out, I did years ago)

    A quick Internet search tells me that you get a 22.4-cent rate to mail out these packages, so for me alone you’re paying that at least 17 times a year, which is about 4 bucks. That doesn’t seem like much, but your own website boasts “over 1,000,000 members,” which means you’re paying over 4 million dollars a year preaching to the choir. (And that doesn’t even include the special edition requests for money: the holiday letter, the tax-time letter, the change-of-address for billing letters, etc.) You obviously have a strong multimedia presence; an emailed brochure, message, or press release arrives in my inbox at least three times a week. So STOP with the snail mail!

    Thanks for your time. I will resend you this letter in a week or so, and then again and again.

Comments

[Karen]

Preach on, Gnumoon.

Well said.