I don’t know about you, but I get all these calls for Rachel. They ask if I’m here and like a dummy I admit that I am. Perhaps I ought to cultivate a deep tenor voice for those occasions and I can take a message (smile). The next thing you really should all know, but a lot of people don’t seem to, if their introduction is starts I’m a little spider and end with I’m calling for the humane use of spidercides PAC. If the caller is a PAC of any kind they are not a charitable organization and chances are that only a nominal amount of your contribution is going to go to the charitable purpose, if any does.
But even if you are not talking a PAC you should ask whether they are a charitable organization, and whether the caller is a paid fund raiser. If they’re paid or not part of a charity you, at best, have no guarantees that your money isn’t being used to buy skittles and beer. As far as I’m concerned they can buy their own skittles and beer.
After this you should still just take a few minutes to find out what the charity does. A lot of them overlap, so you might consider how you want what you can afford to give and what goals you’d like to achieve.
And now for the funny part. I got a call from one of the random breast cancer PACs, not the standard Sussan Komen one. Since I know the legit work on breast cancer research is fairly well funded, my response to do I want to give was would you like to contribute to my very substantial yearly medical bills. Alas they did not. I won’t tell you what they are but it’s substantial. I am not crying poverty by any means. I can afford my bills, but I can’t afford giving funds to a non-charitable organization.
I may well give to the Bonafide American Cancer Society and am willing to give toward Prostate cancer research. Prostate cancer is very common as men grow olde and it is less well funded than BC research. Give what you can afford to give, don’t let anyone make you feel bad and always look under rocks.
My Gifted Life 