During the day I’m usually watching Food Network and between that and HGTV and other random networks, I’ve noticed at least 6 charities asking for money, which is all well and good. charity pledge drives kick up before the holidays and go pretty heavy for a few months.
It’s always bothered me that these charities want to send you a t-shirt or blanket to show that you’ve donated. Why? I guess if you we’re these thing it advertises their charity, that must be it. But knowing you’ve given should be enough.
I know from designing different promotional items for my old business that simple t-shirts run a two to three dollars by every 500. So, if you’re donating $25 and $1 goes toward your t-shirt, they’re netting $24. Part of that pays for the commercials that run incessantly, the office staff, CEOs, lawyers, office buildings, the finally the cause for which the charity runs.
It’s always struck me as odd that give you a t-shirt, tote bag, commemorative coin, or blanket as a thank-you for your donation when a thank-you email and the form to deduct on your taxes is enough.
PBS is the worst offender, which I hate because love PBS so much. They mostly do Saturday morning telethons in Houston, where I currently live. Saturday morning programming is reserved for cooking shows, but instead of fundraising during the shows people already watch (and would be more willing to donate toward), they show three hours of Suze Orman or a motivation writer or some such. Of course, your donation gets you Suze’s book or CDs or whatever. When I was younger, they would have one of the cooks on and they’d give away one of their books and such for every donation level — $125 gets you Martha Stewart’s latest appetizers cookbook, etc. But now they air two weeks of banking advice.
At least we don’t hear “for the price of just a cup of coffee a day, you can feed a child…” Because now that would be $4.
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