<p>I have my own charities that I donate to, that roughly stay the same every year, so any solicitation is annoying, but especially when it is from organizations that I suspect are only tangentially related to the people that they are collecting money for.</p>
<p>It also reminds me of another one of my " favorite community volunteers", :rolleyes: that of paid signature gatherers.</p>
<p>[Pay-per-signature</a> - Ballotpedia](<a href=“http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Pay-per-signature]Pay-per-signature”>Pay-per-signature - Ballotpedia)</p>
<p>Something important to consider:
If you donate even to one of your favorite well-rated respected charities via a phone solicitation, the group/company that does the phone soliciting takes a cut of your donation right off the top. Far better for you to give to the charity <em>directly</em> - by mail or online.</p>
<p>I found this out a year or two back when I succumbed to a phone solicitation ( I always say no and tell them to send me something in the mail) from a charity that we’ve been giving to for years - Doctors w/o Borders ( or maybe CARE or Habitat) and made a pledge over the phone, asking them to send me forms so I could mail in my pledge.
When I received the form the fine print revealed that the phone- soliciting firm kept part of each donation. I’m not sure if it stated what percentage gets siphoned off. I ignored the pledge forms (several repeat mailings) and made a direct donation myself.</p>
<p>Many years ago I had a call from some place claiming to sell frozen cookies (among other things) for a charity. I ordered a box, which was delivered by a rather shady guy late into the evening with absolutely NO accompanying paperwork on the charity/cause. Some time later when I got another call from them I said that they seemed pretty suspicious to me since I didn’t get any papers on their charity. They hung up on me and never called again.</p>
<p>I give locally to police, fire and ambulance. I don’t donate a dime over the phone.</p>