My mother is in early stages of dementia. She has donated in the past to a political party and is now being bombarded with written requests, emails and phone calls for funding. Seems she has been sending little amounts to everyone and those "everyone" has sold their mailing lists with her name. She gets up to 15 written requests per week. She still gets phone calls even though she is on the “do not call” list. We hide the written requests as much as possible and tell the callers to remove her from their lists. We monitor her email and unsubscribe to each one but they just keep multiplying! She is on a fixed income and every little extra bit goes towards her care. We have discussed with her to stop but she feels she is “helping “ and also I feel she thinks it’s her contribution as a voter. It needs to stop. Has anyone dealt with this problem and are there any suggestions to stopping the requests?
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Dad would call when he received a solicitation, I would research the salary, and even if the "top" staff didn't make $100K, I said they did.
If there was any concern about organizations to which he had regularly donated, I raised the issue of the fact that he never made that much but worked hard all his life, and that cinched the issue. No more money for that outfit!
Further, they don't seem to keep track of how much you gave but only that you gave at all; thus, sending one dollar to a dozen fundraisers can be expected to generate hundreds of phonecalls and beg-mail.
So, the advice of "GardenArtist" is not bad and may have some effect, but ultimately so long as their algorithms think there's potential gain that exceeds the cost of calling or mailing they'll keep doing it.
At some point you'll just have to deal with your mother's apparent inability to manage her finances. Which will mean, removing her access to credit/debit cards and a checkbook or otherwise limiting her spending.
Which you're probably not looking forward to, but, asking sharks to go vegan does not work: so long as the mark keeps bleeding money they'll keep asking for more.
Thus far I've been successful in getting rid of all but one Veteran organization, but it helped my father become qualified for benefits, so I more or less tolerate it. Only annoyance is cutting up all those unwanted address labels. (My shredder can't handle anything self addressed; apparently it doesn't want them either and clogs them up.)
As to charities becoming big business, you are so right about that. Has anyone noticed how even the good charities are using the $19/month donation package and advertising heavily on tv?
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I have donated to charities involved with Animals and nature in the past. No more. They "rent out" your name. It once helped to write on a check "Don't share my name". No more. They cut down about a tree a day sending pleas and cheap trash from another country. I no longer donate in any way to any of them. They managed finally to cut their own throats.
If there is a way to stop these pleas I don't know what it is. If she stops donating they MAY stop asking, but I suspect I will be dead before I manage to stop the envelopes full of nifty little return address labels.
1. If there's an SASE, shred the junk mail, or fill it with ads and other junk mail, then send it back with a note that this is what they'll get instead of money.
2. Tell them you won't vote for anyone at any level in their party if they don't stop harassing you.
3. Call the local party office and express your annoyance, as well as threaten to for the other party. That's what I've done so far.