Need to inform Glasgow charities.

April 3, 2009 7:11 AM

I need me a charity/community group directory for Glasgow that I can easily use to send out mass informational emails.

I want to establish relationships with charities and community groups in Glasgow and send them a newsletter from my boss. Don't worry, we will be nice and send one opt in email and then leave it be if they don't want in.

Subscription is fine, downloading teh data is fine, web based, whatever - just a list of emails is fine as long as they are reasonably up to date.

posted by By The Grace of God to grab bag (3 comments total)

we will be nice and send one opt in email and then leave it be if they don't want in.

It seems you are asking for either a spam list that the groups probably did not opt into, where at best they will get bulk e-mail from lots of different groups claiming that it's just one e-mail and you can always opt in/opt out of that group's e-mail! Then you just have to wait for the next person to do the same thing. Spam by a thousand cuts is not what "opt-in" means.

The alternative is to take the addresses people advertise voluntarily, but not for the purpose of receiving bulk e-mail, and abuse them to send them bulk e-mail.

When I chaired a community group in the UK I was inundated with crap like this, and it definitely left me with a poor impression of the spammers.
posted by grouse at 7:27 AM on April 3

I'd go to the CVS in Glasgow and see if you can get some space in their newsletter, and use their networking opportunities. There probably isn't a definitive directory that you can use/buy. The sector is fluid and many organisations are very, very small scale.

(I work for a charity and I'm hesitant to tell you this, please don't spam us, we're busy people)
posted by Helga-woo at 7:40 AM on April 3

I'm terribly sorry, this is something I've been tasked with. I disagree with the premise and have raised these concerns with my boss and she wants to do it anyway. I do appreciate the concerns people are raising here but would prefer to recieve them in my memail rather than in the question thread. Just to reiterate, I am aware of the 'spam' concerns.
posted by By The Grace of God at 7:43 AM on April 3