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I know it’s bad form to talk about what you donate to charity but I need to touch on that so that I can have my rant of the day. It’s possible I have had this little rant before as well but after three years it’s sometimes hard to remember! So – eyes. I have this – probably irrational – fear of losing my sight. Take a leg, an arm even, let me go deaf but please leave my eyes alone. I know that if I ever need eye surgery I will need to ask to be kept anaesthetised for a week before and a week after as any thought of anything being done to my eyes will induce a hurricane force panic attack.
So it’s not unreasonable that when it comes to supporting charities I tend to favour those concerned with helping the blind here at home and preventing unnecessary blindness in the third world. So every month one small donation goes to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. This works on the principle that you are a co-sponsor of a particular dog during its long period of training and as it costs around £10 a day per puppy and takes around 20 months to train, it comes down to one hell of a lot of money and a large number of sponsors.
What angers me is that every now and then, but at least four times a year, I get a progress update in the mail. This is not a simple letter telling me that things are going well and reminding me that I could always increase my donation. I’d be happy with that – actually, I’d be happy with nothing or maybe just a quick note that the dog I co-sponsor has gone to a home. No – this is a glossy, full colour leaflet dedicated to my sponsored dog with pictures of it looking happy and a report on it’s progress. And they do this for every dog in training.
As someone that was once a graphic designer working within the print industry, this sort of thing is not cheap. It’s not just the print and mail costs either, there is the design and production cost and there are people involved who need to be paid. And it is totally unnecessary. I know why they do it – the theory is that the more you ‘involve’ the donors and make them feel a part of the process the more likely you are to keep their regular donation. But the question they should be asking is ‘if we don’t send you glossy leaflets and picture postcards of your dog and don’t waste time writing it all up and getting it printed then we can invest that saving in training more dogs. Are you happy with that?‘. And I bet the vast majority would say yes. That is, after all, why we make the donation in the first place.
[...] [...]
http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/fileadmin/gdba/downloads/Events/AGM_2007/Report_and_accounts.pdf
Page 30 – Suport Costs – includes :-
Legacy Marketing and Administration – looks like it costs £41,ooo /year for the pointless brochure.
Whereas they spent £2,888,000 on guide dogs and they trained 748 dogs – so it costs £4000 / dog so they could train another 10 dogs!!
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw
Go on, be unreasonable !!!!
Andy…I am WITH you on this!!! (Because this aligns closely with my personal pet peeve of our university sending out TONS of this type of thing to each and every employee to advertise EVERYTHING that goes on here on campus (and we have about 3700 of them). Most of the flyers and leaflets get chucked in the trash or into the recycle bin (but it costs to recycle the stuff as well!!).
There is so much waste in this world, that it behooves us as individuals to stand up and LOUDLY complain. Were I you, I would write the foundation a letter asking them to use the money they would spend sending me a frou-frou brochure to train more dogs. (I’ve repeatedly tried to make my voice heard here…to no avail…but perhaps you’ll have better luck!)
P.S. I’m also in your camp about total anesthesia for any eye procedure. I fear that when they diagnose cataracts in my eyes I’ll opt for the white cane!!
Jansy & Malc: I have actually remonstrated with these people and even threatened to withdraw my donation if they don’t stop sending me all this stuff. They even promised once that they would, indeed, stop. But of course it still comes….
I too have an irrational fear of losing my sight. I’ve been pulled about by ophthalmologists far too much over the years with my eye problems, mostly so they can learn more about my particular syndrome than actually help me with it. One of the charities I give a small amount to every month is a school for blind children in Kent that also provides a nursery for under fives, something not generally available to blind tots. They do exactly the same with these glossy newsletters and I got a call just after Christmas asking if I’d consider upping my donation. I told them yes but they should stop spending so much of the cash they get on these unnecessary brochures and could they please stop sending me one. Result – they got more money and the last newsletter arrived last week, even more elaborate than before. I’ve sent them an e.mail.
I often feel the same way about charities: their money is often ill-spent. I want to know that close to 100% of the money they raise is actually helping the cause, instead of being wasted on inflated administrative or marketing-related expenses.
Best personal example: I took part in an AIDS walk last year, and got a decent amount of sponsors for my walk. To this day, I often get bombarded with colorful booklets and brochures and updates and whatnot. In addition, all of my sponsors – people who gave out of the kindness of their own heart – are also complaining to me that they keep getting harassed with junk mail. They have easily spent the money I raised just on remarketing to the same people with fancy paper. So very wasteful!
http://www.joyfuldigesting.com/
Tee and Jeni:
Sounds like a common complaint. This is what happens when they hire a marketing manager. And just think how much money they are paying those as well!
Charities believe they are in ‘business’ and ‘compete’ for your money with the other charities, so they have to put more ‘tear jerkers’ into their brochures and I’m sure that somewhere in the charity, some tosser on £80k a year is ’selling’ next year’s brochure to big boss now, probably comparing charity A’s brochure and saying, "look their brochure is so much shinyer/clearer/more colourful than yours, we need to spend more money on it.
Solution ? – Simple but hard I’m afraid, you write a letter to the big boss and tell them in no uncertain way,that either they ‘down spec’ to a simple text email update OR you will cancel your subscription – then cancel.
So far I have donated to and cancelled WWF, Help the Aged, RSPCA, there will always be another good cause and if they spend my money better then I move it – sorry for sounding so hard, but they look at you as a bottomless pit of money.(Rant over !)
rant quite justified IMHO Malc.
You know what really got me was they send out raffle tickets for me to sell (which I never do because people generally don’t like you forcing it on them) so when they called to ask if I’d consider raising my monthly donation I asked if they had any Xmas cards I could purchase instead. They don’t do them. All those colour brochures and they can’t produce some simple Xmas cards for you to order!
The focus group thought Xmas cards might upset people because they are not inclusive !!!!
There you go Jeni – you’ve met a bigger cynic than me
the sad thing is – Malc is most probably correct.