E-chuggered by Mencap

Early morning email from Mencap, with exciting news and fundraising pleas. Apparently, I received this because I'd given consent to being contacted by them. Except I haven't. Also, although the e-mail, right at the end, states I can 'unsubscribe', there was no link allowing me to do so.
Now, I know that Mencap does vitally important work, but this kind of unsolicited e-begging (as with postal pestering and on street chuggering) seriously reduces the good name of many charities. Yes, I know times are hard financially, and that their are a lot of causes competing for money. But it starts to feel rather underhand when appeals masquerade as news, surveys or questionnaires, or when charities buy in the names and addresses of the provenly pesterable, based presumably on prior giving to comparable causes.

Charitable giving becomes a tradeable commodity

My mother-in-law is interested in animal welfare and for several years has made donations to charities working to alleviate suffering or rehome animals. Recently, however, she has noticed a marked increase in requests for donations from a host of other charities. These take the form of letters, and can come at the rate of 5 or 6 a week. Being advanced in years, it can be distressing to be deluged with mail you haven't requested - and, again, being older - perhaps she hasn't noticed the little box you're supposed to tick if you don't want your details to be sold on to other parties, with the express purpose of being the target of an ever increasing number of pestering, begging letters. Things have now reached a point where I regularly remove - unopened - a range of letters and take them back to my house and our waiting shredder. Sorry to have to break it to you, but the Spectacled Bears of the Andes will not be benefiting from my mother-in-law's largesse, neither will his Grace the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban - thanks for the card, you look great in the cardinal's robes, your Grace, and the blessing on the back of the postcard was no doubt kindly meant. But I hope you don't mind my mentioning that your request for donations to be paid into an Isle of Man bank account does rather put the Catholic Church in the same frame as some rather disreputable company, just when things were starting to look up a bit for the Church (of which my mother-in-law has never been a member, by-the-by).

Chuggered on my own doorstep

A guy called from the RSPCA the other day. We don't live on a main road, in fact, you have to travel some distance up a hill to find us, but he was nothing if not persistent. He wanted me to agree to a standing order to protect animals from cruelty and he was very forceful in his delivery and batted aside my comment that, while I knew the RSPCA prosecuted those who harmed animals, I also thought that they were a tad too gung ho in some cases. This was 'political' and he didn't want to go there - all he wanted were my bank details. And I refused to give them, so he left - leaving me with the rather unpleasant feeling that I had been hectored on my own doorstep by a chugger. Meet one on the street and you can sidestep them, but when they turn up on your doorstep, all enforced bonhommie and over-the-top persuasion, they present a very different image. If one calls from a charity I do support - and there are many - I will immediately cancel my direct debit and tell them exactly why I've done it.