Strange Famous

or I should say, why I dont give money to large organised charities.

If they have charity days at work (like people bring cakes for others to buy and proceeds go to charity, or charity raffles) I take part usually.

But, despite the fact I am bombarded (as most of us are if we live in the West I suspect) with requests and plea's from charities almost daily, I dont give any money - other than I tend to buy a Poppy for Rembrance Day

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The reason is from one experience I had when I was 21. It was just after I finished university, and I got my first full time job. I was working in a warehouse, earning about £5 an hour (in 1999). Since for the first time in my life I had a reasonable income, one of the things I did was set up a Direct Debit to pay £10 a month to a charity that I felt was worthwhile. A very large UK wide charity.

For the next 3 months, they wrote to me EVERY WEEK, with letters basically saying "thank you for giving £10, but if you gave £40 we could do so much more good works"... showing lots of very sad stories and sad looking photo's, etc.

I really was outraged by this. Fair enough, £10 isnt a huge amount of money, but I was young, I didnt have a great income, and I was giving something which I felt I could afford to give. And what do they do? Spend most of the money I gave them to send me letters trying to emotionally blackmail me into giving more.

I cancelled the Direct Debit, wrote to them and told them why (never received a reply) and since then I have never set up a regular donation, and have never really given to charity other than odd donations to local charities: through work or putting some loose change in a collection tin if I walk past and feel like I dont get asked aggressively

You might say I am mean spirited, or that it is wrong to tar every charity with the ingratitude that one showed over 10 years ago to me. Maybe both accusations are somewhat fair, but I still remember how pissed off and I upset I was with every letter I received back then, and I just dont want to give anymore to people who might be like that.

I thought of this the other day when I was in the supermarket. They had a lady collecting for charity, standing by the checkouts, and she was... its hard to describe, but literally pleading in this desperate voice "disabled children? give money to save disabled children??"

It just really annoyed me. I dont mean to sound like a prick, I have no doubt that the charity she worked for may do good work, and helping kids who have had some hard luck is a good cause... but just the way some of these people try to blackmail you into giving them money annoys me.

I dont have a lot of spare money, and I feel like you should have to feel like a shit if you cant afford to donate something, and thats how a lot of these people seem to make you want to feel. I really dont think I am externalising some inner guilt, or at least not totally.

If someone was standing there just collecting money I may well have put some change in the tin, but she was basically vocally begging for money & gave me a very reproachful look when I walked past and didnt put any money in the tin. I think that supermarkets shouldnt let these people into the shop if they interact in this way with customers, but if they took that position they would probably be portrayed as mean and so on

I am not saying that everyone who works for a charity is like this, nor that all charities are bad... but I have had enough negative experiences in my life that it has really put me off and I rarely give money even when I could afford to give a little. I think thats kind of a sad state of mind to have, but its the way my experiences have made me feel

Id be interested what anyone elses feelings or experiences are like?

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas