$1 Does Make a Difference

Although I'm not even half way through the day, I've already started to notice (and been bothered by) some mailing responses we've received.

Working with our direct mail, which sorts our donations daily in Raiser's Edge, I have to go through the actually paper mail responses as well. I just finished putting donations for February 7 that added up to almost $10,000 (awesome!) when I had to go through several stacks of the mailings enclosed with the checks. Most days there are little changes, such as people asking us  to address them differently or to decide on a name choice since our old mailing still  had Second Harvest of Wisconsin on it. Today, however, I had several mailings that asked to either be dropped from the list or to be contacted less often. Again, not uncommon considering most of our donors are senior citizens living on fixed income. Unfortunately, some of them are quite blunt when asking to stop mailing. One woman, who donated $350, explained in a note that she donates to other charities and that this was her donation for FAEW 2011 and that if we contact her again before 2012 she will "cut us off". No apologies, no sincere thanks, simply I will cut you off and instead of a signature just her return address label was placed at the end of her note. I was put off by this and then literally a few mailings after that another donor said the same thing. I spoke with a co-worker about this and she read the note and said that the note wasn't even that bad, she indeed has read worse. This was a little off-putting to say the least.

To my knowledge, we don't send out mailings that often. Typically it's quarterly and around the holidays it goes along with Thanksgiving and Christmas campaigns. Of course, times are difficult and people can only afford to donate so much, but don't you think you could say it a little bit more nicely? It's not like I'm soliciting for girl scout cookies or to have you buy a sweet set of imported kitchen knives from me. This is a donation that creates nutritious meals for families that go hungry every day; most of whom are children and senior citizens right here in the United States. Again, I understand people cannot donate even if they wish they could but c'mon, put a little bit more nicely. As my mother would say, with age comes a loss of a filter. My own grandmother who was in a severe car accident in October has completely lost her filter (it's quite funny actually) and is very blunt. I guess this is how some donors are. Now on the other hand, a niece sent us a typed letter on behalf of her aunt who was a donor of ours asking us to please stop mailings since the donor is quite elderly and suffering from dementia. It was simple, polite and to the point. My heart went out to her and her aunt.

I suppose today was somewhat of an eye opener for me. Many challenges come when one works for an non-profit company and I guess this is one of them. Regardless of the hundreds of wonderful, generous donations we receive there will be days where I may have to read about someone who is, quite frankly, fed up with our mailings. I wish it wasn't that way, but then again I have to remember the world doesn't always work the way we would like it to.

For all of those who have donated to FAEW and/or continue to donate to us, thank you. Your contributions help keep our food banks running and our communities healthy.