Trollheart

What's your view? Do you give, and to which one(s)? I personally find a lot of them quite pushy, but am usually persuaded to contribute, mostly due to carefully-handed guilt, so without question I'm being manipulated. But there are a lot of things that annoy or concern me about charities. Firstly, where exactly is your money going? We've had several scandals here where corruption has been revealed to be rife in the top levels of management of several charities, where directors were lining their pockets. Secondly, this "monthly debit" thing: it used to be you went into town, saw someone on a street corner rattling a box, gave them a few quid and felt better about yourself for a few seconds, and that was it. Now it's people calling to your door armed with direct debit mandates, asking for your email, wanting you to sign up for x amount every month.

The worst thing about this is that, no more than a month after you've signed up, they will always (and I mean always) call you up to try to squeeze more money out of you. "Oh, you signed up for twenty euro a month," they'll say. "Can you manage twenty-five? Only, we can get tax relief on contributions of over twenty-five euro." Now, first, I thought charities were tax exempt, so where is this coming from? Second, even if this is right, well sorry if I sound harsh, but I don't care if you get tax exemptions. What is that to me? How do I know that the money you save in tax is going to the needy? Maybe you're pocketing it. So no, I won't increase my monthly amount and please stop asking me, telling me it's only a fiver. I exist on carers' allowance of 210 euro a week. I can't afford another fiver, and anyway, you got me to sign up and give you twenty euro out of my hard-earned every month: why is that not good enough for you?

I dislike this idea of calling to your door, pushing pictures of starving children/mistreated animals/homeless/disaster victims/whatever in your face to try and shame you into signing up. It's a tactic I heartily disapprove of, and I also don't like signing up for anything at the door, whether it's electric, phone, internet or a charity. Let me look over the documentation and I'll make up my mind and get back to you. But no: it's all "can you sign now? Only take a minute." The hard sell allied to the soft soap: hard to say no, and I usually don't because then you feel like a **** for not helping.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018