I find it interesting how people and organisations keep coming back to us for more and more financial assistance. This is the type of thing that really puts us off donations because it’s never enough to give a one-off donation. You give once and it is always followed up by them asking for more. I think I wrote about this not long ago, in fact, when one of our regular groups where we donate called again to ask us to increase the amount. I said no to them last time. And there are the people in your life that ask for assistance. We certainly don’t want to refuse help to those in need, particularly if they were close family or friends and they are just going through some tough times. But in some of these cases, the person seems to spend more time begging for more money than making use of what we’ve already given. This always puts us in the awkward position of having to say no to people we love and care about.

Several years ago, I agreed to make monthly donations to Oxfam. Soon, I started receiving mail from them regularly to tell me of all they were doing and also to ask for further donations. I got fed up with all the mail and told the organisation I would stop donating if the mail continued. Now I get very little mail through the year, with the exception of a tax record. Instead of mail, I get email messages somewhat regularly from Oxfam. I also get a phone call about once every year or two, thanking me for my donations but then asking for more. Even after we’ve increased the amount of our donations quite recently.

Around the same time, the Scientist started donating to the World Wildlife Fund. While it seems a good cause, it’s mind-boggling how many glossy mailouts we get here. I think he did ask for a stop on those mail-outs at some point but we still seem to get mail from them fairly often. They always ask for further donations, of course.

I once gave to a local fund for the children’s hospital and now they send letter after letter asking for further money. The same could be said for other organisations that don’t immediately come to mind. It seems once you give, it’s like the flood gate are opened and more and more requests come through. I do kind of understand how this comes about, but it’s quite frustrating to keep getting more requests. And so often it seems as much money as I might have donated that one time is now spent on asking for more money. It’s a wonder the organisations have anything to spend on the particular cause.

Recently, I have had the most unusual sort of requests for donations ever when the Red Cross contacted me and thank me for my recent plasma donations. And then proceeded to ask me to give again, of course. I had already scheduled another donation at that point so that was particularly strange to me.

This donation thing is a very odd beast, to be sure.