Those charitable gifts

My dear wife went out and brought in the mail. It consisted of five pieces. One was a utility bill, and four were requests for money from charities. All of these charities have good causes, at least in their view. This number of requests is not unusual: Recently I received a total of 25 such requests in one month, all from established organizations.

Once you decide to make a donation, the average contributor becomes “locked in,” so to speak. A couple of weeks after you have sent the money, you will likely get a letter that says essentially, “Thank you for your generous contribution; please send more.”

These organizations undoubtedly sell your name and address to other charities who immediately put you on their mailing lists. You will receive requests from many other charities. And if you try to pay your taxes and bills on time and pay off your debts, you may get a good credit score. Somehow the charities find this out and you really become a “mark.” You can never send enough.

These people are professional fundraisers in business to raise money, and they don’t care if you just gave last month or if you are nearly broke, they want more. From the donor’s standpoint, he does not know absolutely that what he might give actually goes to where the charity says it does. It may go primarily to pay fundraisers.

If you don’t send money often enough, the charity may “lure” you with “gifts.” These may consist of such things as address labels (I have thousands), note pads, coins, health “hints,” bookmarks, holiday stickers, calendars, or greeting cards.

Now you may ask, am I trying to eliminate all donations to charities? The answer is “no.” But do these practices make me feel like being a persnickety old tightwad? Yeah, they do. JACK McFARLIN

Little Rock