How Can I Stop All These Solicitations?
Mary Caggiano has a hard time saying no when a charity asks for a donation. But her generosity backfired: she is receiving more unsolicited requests than she can handle from dozens of charities.

“I receive requests for donations every day. Some of them include things like address labels, which I now have in the hundreds, or Christmas cards. I feel so guilty refusing, especially if the request is from a veterans group, with the war going on and all,” the New York City woman explained.

“Is there any way I can have this mail eliminated, without feeling guilty?”

Don’t feel bad because you want to regain control of your mail and your checkbook. It’s good to be compassionate, but it’s also reasonable to limit your concern to a few well-chosen charities. You don’t have to give to every organization that sends you a letter.

In fact, doing so is a bad idea. Whenever you donate, even a few dollars, the charity is likely to add your name to its donor list. That list is as valuable as your financial contribution.

Charities rent, sell and exchange their mailing lists with other nonprofit organizations, as well as catalog companies and other for-profit businesses. “When you give a charity you haven’t supported in the past, you increase your chances of receiving mailings from additional organizations,” the BBB Wise Giving Alliance explains.

You may even get more than one from the same organization. That’s because charities may send 10 million or more letters as part of national direct mail campaigns. To get all those names, it may use up to 50 mailing lists, and your name or a variation of it may be on more than one.

The charity may program its computer to eliminate duplicate names, but even the computer isn’t selective enough to eliminate mailings with slight variations of your name or address.

Read more about this issue here.“>here.

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