Do not give list?

December 31, 2008 7:58 AM

Does anyone maintain a "Do not give list"? By this, I mean a list of charities that engage in telephone telemarketing, and hence to whom one should avoid giving donations.

It'd also be nice to know about excessive junk mail and spam, but those are less invasive.

Charity Navigator takes privacy policies into account, but this seems rather weak. Why not target the charities doing the asking? (See also NYT & MSN)

posted by jeffburdges to law & government (20 comments total)

Is it the actual telemarketing, or hiring the contracted firms skimming 60% that you're wondering about? Does any charity, if it chooses to actively pursue funding via telephone, no longer qualify for funding?
posted by kingbenny at 8:09 AM on December 31, 2008

I would suggest contacting the charities to whom you are considering donating and asking them directly, "Does your organization do any fund raising over the phone at all?" I thikn you'll find that most do.

Question:If fund raising via phone, email, or snail mail is enough to make you withhold a contribution, what sort of fund raising methods are acceptable to you?
posted by DWRoelands at 8:19 AM on December 31, 2008

Dangit! "think". Not thikn"! Curse my human eyes!
posted by DWRoelands at 8:20 AM on December 31, 2008

No. Charities and political organizations are immune from the the do not call list. I just ask to be removed from lists when I get called. Seems to work so far.

It'd also be nice to know about excessive junk mail and spam, but those are less invasive.

Charities do need to follow the provisions in the CAN-SPAM act. They shouldnt be spamming you unless you have a previous relationship with them. Junk mail is free game. If they can afford to mail it, the post office will send it.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:25 AM on December 31, 2008

Most likely every non-profit uses telephone fundraising, because it is the most cost effective fundraising method. You can simply ask them not to call you, and they won't. The rest of this comment is really an explanation of fundraising via telephone and why they do it.

Full disclosure: I spent a summer several years ago working as a telefundraiser for non-profits.

First, my firm was paid a flat fee upfront by the non-profit. Money was sent directly to the organization. We never saw or took any percentage of the donations. I don't know about all such firms, but I think it is a common misconception that anyone calling you about a donation gets some percentage of it.

Second, the reason non-profits hire telefundraisers in the first is that it is by far the most cost-effective means for them to raise money. Any decent charity strives to keep its overhead down so they're not wasting donations on administration. Soliciting, receiving, and processing donations via mail, for example, costs a non-profit a lot more money than via phone. In effect, it makes your donation worth less money. (I can't speak for email, as this was before non-profits did much with email. I imagine it is also very cost-effective, but perhaps less predictable or reliable.)

Final note: At least in my experience, when people asked to be taken off the phone list, that was absolutely respected. Especially if you just ask politely and hang up.
posted by derelk at 9:13 AM on December 31, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Another former non-profit fundraiser who came here to say exactly what derelk said. I can't think of a single membership-based nonprofit that doesn't do telemarketing.
posted by lunasol at 9:22 AM on December 31, 2008

I'll echo everyone else, having worked in the NPO field as well. Membership based nonprofits HAVE to do this. Fundraising is not a sexy part of the nonprofit field (like program or advocacy work), but it's essential.
posted by waylaid at 10:26 AM on December 31, 2008

I never give money again if a charity ever calls on the telephone, period. I'd also avoid giving if they sent excessive junk mail or spam, meaning twice per year is acceptable, but monthly is not.

Btw, I would not count "action alert" messages, meaning messages or calls about voting, calling congress critters, or protesting. A charity will normally take you off their action alert list quite happily.

Yes, I'll suppose just ask if they use telemarketing next time I'm looking to donate. But my question is more if anyone is pushing the idea that charities shouldn't fund raise over the phone.

derelk, It's fairly ridiculous to claim that telephone fundraising is the most "cost effective" fundraising method, given that email has almost zero cost in comparison.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:31 AM on December 31, 2008

I never give money again if a charity ever calls on the telephone, period.
Phone fund raising gets results. Those results (among other things) feed the hungry, clothe the naked and give hope to the hopeless. If the price of those results is an annoying phone call (or a hundred annoying phone calls), it's worth it. Period.
posted by DWRoelands at 10:50 AM on December 31, 2008

derelk, It's fairly ridiculous to claim that telephone fundraising is the most "cost effective" fundraising method, given that email has almost zero cost in comparison.

I think derelk means the lowest cost to achieve a given volume of donations, rather than the lowest cost to send a given message to a given number of people.

That is, if you get a higher donation rate with phone calls than you get with spam e-mails, you might end up with more $ after expenses by telephoning 10,000 prior donors, than by spamming the same people.

Hell, I don't even see most of my spam - it gets caught by automatic filters, and I delete the handful that get through without reading. The response rate for spam must be very, very low.

Yes, I'll suppose just ask if they use telemarketing next time I'm looking to donate. But my question is more if anyone is pushing the idea that charities shouldn't fund raise over the phone.

If you are considering starting your own "do not give" list I would suggest you narrow down your criteria from "charities who telephone fund raise at all" to "charities who do not respect the telemarketing 'do not call' list".

My reasoning is: (1) By making your demands more reasonable your boycott is more likely to get results and (2) People can put themselves on the 'do not call' list and achieve the results (i.e. no calls) you're looking for, albeit imperfectly.
posted by Mike1024 at 11:10 AM on December 31, 2008

I think the cost effectiveness of the phone versus email issue stems from the fact that people are more likely to donate if they are talking to a person. Emails are easier to ignore. I imagine that you get more donations from 100 phone calls than from 100 emails.

When you select a charity, I'd recommend asking them not to call you from the outset. Or don't provide your (real) phone number at all.
posted by juliplease at 11:10 AM on December 31, 2008

derelk, It's fairly ridiculous to claim that telephone fundraising is the most "cost effective" fundraising method, given that email has almost zero cost in comparison.


Just to comment on email, while it's true that sending email doesn't exactly cost anything, any sort of non in-house bulk email solution will have some sort of fee, such as Constant Contact. There are also services that charge a small amount per message. I'm not sure how this compares to phone costs, but don't just assume that since we don't pay anything to use gmail, large organizations don't pay anything to maintain and use large contact lists.
posted by niles at 11:28 AM on December 31, 2008

OP: To answer your initial question, no, there are no such lists. If you want to not give to groups that do telemarketing because it annoys you, that is obviously your right, but understand that this will limit your giving to groups that are either too poorly run to survive, groups that don't need your money, or groups that are just too small in scope to do telemarketing (ie, neighborhood groups, very small theater groups, etc). Obviously, of the three, only the third is worth spending your money on.

Also, to the email question: email does cost money. First you have to buy the emails somewhere (possibly from a data-mining company that gets some of its data from telemarketers). Then you have to pay someone on staff to write them and maintain the online donation site. This takes technical skills so these people are some of the most in-demand professionals in the nonprofit world and don't come cheap. Then you have to pay a company to actually send the emails for you. And then on top of that, very, very few people open these emails, much less read them.

On the other hand, telemarketing requires more staff, but that staff - students, artists, recent grads -is usually part-time and comes to the job with a lot less skills. And the yield is a lot higher compared to email. Typically if you're calling people who have given to the group before, as many as 50% will donate again. Which makes telemarketing a very good value.
posted by lunasol at 11:56 AM on December 31, 2008

derelk, It's fairly ridiculous to claim that telephone fundraising is the most "cost effective" fundraising method, given that email has almost zero cost in comparison.

I used to work in non-profit IT. A lot of shops outsource their email campaigns. It also costs time (which is money) to maintain the lists, run the campaigns, etc. It also turns out that the success rate for this kind of this is abysmal. Email is a better communications tool than a fundraising tool.

Non-profits use call centers because they can usually get volunteers to make the calls and people are much more willing to give money if they hear a real human voice. Direct mail is better too because people respond to real letters and appreciate little things like address stickers with their names on them. Old folks like writing checks and are suspicious of the web.

Honestly, if you want to be Mr. Anonymous/leave me alone, and we get those types, I think its an unrealistic attitude unless you tell them you dont want to be on any lists or mailing in the beginning. I suggest just donating anonymously with cash. Most donors dont mind the occasional phone call or email. So, no, theres no big movement to stop non-profit solicitation.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:57 AM on December 31, 2008

If you don't want the calls, don't give out your number. I currently do telefundraising, and every person that we call is a previous donor who has given us their phone number.
posted by Orrorin at 12:10 PM on December 31, 2008

" I can't think of a single membership-based nonprofit that doesn't do telemarketing."

Nonsense. Unless you're talking about the gigunda "household name" nonprofits.

Most smaller, more local ones don't telemarket. And I prefer to give to smaller, local nonprofits anyway.
posted by jimmyjimjim at 12:27 PM on December 31, 2008

I work as a development professional in an environmental nonprofit, and I can think of a number of reasons that you are concerned about these practices (which run the gamut from door-to-door solicitation, to email solicitation, to telephone solicitation, to direct mail solicitation and even to personal board member solicitation for high dollar donors). There are a lot of parts of those practices that people find problematic for a number of reasons. Many people, erroneously, see them as an inefficient use of donations. Many others are simply irked to be contacted so many times.

Unfortunately for you and me (I count myself among those annoyed by constant solicitations), we in development don't get to make up the rules. We just do what works, and often it is done on a trial and error basis - though in recent years with industry publications becoming more sophisticated, and technology permitting more instantaneous analysis there's more trial and less error. But I promise you that those of us working in development are ALWAYS thinking about these things, and chief among our concerns are two things: how to make the process less painful for people while still maintaining or increasing their giving levels, and how to make the process more financially efficient.

Some industry publications may help you to learn more about fundraising, which may help you come to terms with how it is done this way and why it is done this way. Check out FundRaising Success, a magazine that has pretty decent information including soft statistics on success rates for fundraising campaigns. It recently featured an article on envelope "teasers" or the little notes printed on the outside of mass mailings, which apparently have statistically ZERO impact on the success of the campaign (though it is believed that is primarily because people are so bad at coming up with GOOD teasers). Chronicle of Philanthropy is useful also, because every year they rank many of the top nonprofits in fundraising efficiency. A word of warning: this could be a red herring for your purposes. Fundraising is increasingly efficient for organizations with bigger budgets, leading to a statistical snowball effect. Also, it never gets around to ranking smaller nonprofits, and those are the ones you may be curious to learn more about, because they may have more of an impact on your geographic area.

You may also consider contacting a local bank or a local philanthropic organization (there are many here in Philadelphia) who work with donors as intermediaries. Many people suspect that the amount they are giving is insignificant and doesn't warrant financial planning. That is often a misconception. For example, the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund and the Phialdelphia Foundation are two organizations here in Philadelphia which help donors manage their financial contributions. The added benefit of this route is that YOU are never spammed with solicitations, as all "thank you notes," "requests for funding," "letters of inquiry," and other typical correspondences are handled by the representative who manages your "fund." The term I've seen used most frequently is a "Donor Advised Fund."

In all, I'd say that I'd need to know more about your motivation in asking this question to really provide any more helpful information.
posted by greekphilosophy at 1:02 PM on December 31, 2008

You should only have to ask to be removed from a reputable charity's phone list once. If you still have a moral issue with phone solicitation in general, then you will have a very limited number of charities to donate to.
It sounds like you take an unusual amount of offense to being solicited by phone, in that telephone fundraising wouldn't be done if everyone felt the way that you do about it.

Bottom line-- it works. This is especially true because older people generally donate more money and more often than young people, but older people are much less likely to use email/the internet. They do use the phone, of course.

The people saying that phone solicitation is the most cost-effective method of solicitation are not just pulling that fact out of their asses. When this information comes from people in the business, you should probably not brush it off in the way that you did.

The best way to choose a charity to donate to is to find one that uses it's money wisely to do the most good and is for a cause you believe in. Many extremely worthwhile charities engage in phone solicitation because they need that money to further their ability to take action.
posted by fructose at 4:06 PM on December 31, 2008

You should only have to ask to be removed from a reputable charity's phone list once.

This is fine when it's infrequent, but when you get lots and lots of these from different charities? It's tedious to tell each and every one that you're not interested, and it's an unwanted intrusion to waste your time, *especially* if you are way too poor to donate anything. Some of us are really drained by unwanted phone calls, and I know that I personally feel like a bitch when I have to tell some well-meaning earnest person on the phone to leave me alone. You can say I'm oversensitive, fine, I'm oversensitive - guess what, it's still a burden to my oversensitive self and you're not going to get my oversensitive ass to change.

jeffburdges, I would be interested in such a list as well. I'd rather give money to a charity that doesn't telemarket at all. It is over my personal line with what is acceptable, and I'd rather give my money to organizations that don't do it.

Seriously, if (doing horrible thing X) was the only way for charities to make money, would you be for it, no matter what? What if it was kicking puppies? What if it was smashing random windshields? What if, what if, what if, we can all come up with something we would find to be over the line. Some of us draw that "unacceptable" line at unsolicited phone calls. You may draw it in a different place, and that's fine. You don't rely on our donations in the first place anyway. We can coexist. (We = people who are so annoyed by unsolicited phone calls that we will never give one penny to your organization, even if we would have been able to consider it if you had reached people in some other less (or un-)obtrusive way.)
posted by marble at 6:02 PM on December 31, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I can relate. We used to donate to a few different charities, and now, because of 1) having less money to give and 2) the irritations of unsolicited 'freebies' in the mail from the charities and so many unwanted phone calls, we stopped donating to all charities. Years later, I'm still trying to get the charities to understand that they're wasting their time with us. Someone said that you should only have to ask reputable charities once to remove you from their contact list. Tell that to Habitat for Humanity! Anyway, I'm not aware of the sort of resource that you're looking for, but it would certainly be something that I would review before donating in the future.
posted by Mael Oui at 9:39 PM on December 31, 2008