What Happened To Warm And Fuzzy Fundraising?

The doorbell rang when The Doc and Bitch were downstairs in the family room, both reclined with their feet up, intent on watching the baseball game. It was the ninth inning and their beloved Blue Jays were losing. As loyal fans, they were hoping for a ninth-inning rally.

It was early evening and it was very rare for someone to come to their door at that time. The Bitch looked at The Doc, who needs two new knees and wasn’t going anywhere, and then wormed her way out of the reclined sofa. Going up the stairs, she saw a head of dark hair through the side windows of the front door and knew exactly why someone was ringing their doorbell. The owner of the head of dark hair was fundraising. Fundraisers seem to be the only people who appear on the doorstep at this time of day–after dinner but before dark.

Now The Bitch can be very empathetic and generous to these fundraisers because going door to door to raise money is a real pain in the ass and not something she ever liked doing herself. She is especially generous to the little fundraisers. Hockey players, paddlers, students, all with a cause near and dear to their hearts. She even buys Girl Guide Cookies even though she feels they are the must disgusting things to eat, especially since their rebrand. However, The Doc will eat anything so they don’t go to waste.

This particular fundraiser was a young man in his mid twenties collecting for a good cause, so The Bitch agreed to donate and invited him in. As she shared her intentions to go get cash from her wallet, thinking that she would hand him some money and quickly get back to the ninth inning, he informed her that they don’t take cash and all donations had to be on line. “OK,” The Bitch stated, “but I am in the the ninth inning of the ball game and I really want to see the end of it.” In other words lets get this over with fast.

They proceeded with the process of him asking the questions and her answering the questions and stating a preferred donation amount and were just about finished, except for the credit card number, when he mentioned that the donation would be set up as a recurring event; and if she didn’t want to do that, she could opt out at a later time.

EXCUSE ME!!!

“No,” said The Bitch. “I am not interested in having this set up as a recurring event.”

“But it is easy to opt out,” he said. “They send you an email with a link and you can opt out.”

By this time, The Bitch is thinking about her old cable company who about fifteen years ago decided to give every one of their customers a three-month-free-preview of channels that they normally would have to pay for. The catch was that you had to contact the company to opt out after three months or you were on the hook for the cost of these channels going forward. This form of marketing is questionable at best. There was such a stink made by customers that the cable company had to back down and change the model to opt in after three months as opposed to opt out.

The Bitch mentioned this to the young fundraiser, who she knew didn’t make the rules and was just trying to make a living, because she felt the need to voice her displeasure towards the fundraising company’s tactics. It wasn’t personal, just questionable.

“But it’s easy to opt out,” he said again.

“That’s not the point,” The Bitch replied. “If that email doesn’t arrive for some reason,” as has happened to her with fundraising companies in the past in the form of missing receipts, “I will be on the hook for future payments that I don’t want to make.” AND, she thought, how will I chase down some administrator to rectify that situation. A one-time missing receipt is one thing, a continuous automatic deduction from your bank account is another. The whole experience was beginning to deliver the vibes of a nightmare waiting to happen.

In the end, the young fundraiser suggested that perhaps The Bitch would rather not donate, and The Bitch agreed. By this time the ball game was in extra innings and The Bitch was not feeling warm and fuzzy about her latest fundraising experience as she would have loved to donate to The Special Olympics, just not under those circumstances.

Thank you for reading.

Photo: Unsplash