Every day a different community group or charity makes contact asking for funds, products for prizes or some other support. While I have not tracked the data, it feels like more requests are coming in now than a year ago. They also feel more demanding.
I received one request this week saying that young lives were at rick if my business could not help the group raise money. The pitch was emotive and passive aggressive. I responded indicating that the business makes its giving commitments at the start of each financial year and that we were not in a position to give on top of these. The follow up email was unhelpful to their cause.
In addition to email requests there are letters, phone calls and walk-ins to the shop. As I noted at the start, weekly – indeed, often more than one a week.
Owners of shops, no matter how small, are often treated through these requests as if they can afford to agree to every request.
Saying no is challenging, especially in close-knit country towns and regional situations. I often hear from newsagents of them making donations they cannot afford.
I do think the best response is to decide on a couple of charities at the start of the year and maybe agree on a limited amount you would donate through the year on impulse – this at least gives you the ability to respond to some requests that come through.
I’d love to hear what others do in response to the constant streak of requests for assistance, especially those seeking cash or products for prizes.
Never cash , most times we offer a gift for a raffle with a $10-$20 dollar store gift voucher . The gift voucher does seem to bring in people we may have never seen before
to local community groups we give in store vouchers, all others we inform them that all funding is allocated to Variety, who allocates there funding to a broader section of childern in need, we seldom get a repeat caller.
We offer items, never cash but we usually knock most of them back and advise there are only so many groups we can donate to. I have also started advising them that as times are changing they should consider treating their fund raising much like a business and buy their own raffle items to make a profit.
With phone calls I am very abrupt and never let them get into a spiel and ” Sorry not interested . Goodbye” and hang up.
We select 4 charities at the start of each year and that’s all we do, its our preference to remain local, PCYCs, schools etc.
We have a number of schools, kinders etc that we support with stock items (slow stock) for raffles. An innovative school has a find the gnome search which brings new faces into the store and makes them really look at the stock as the gnome is moved regularly. People collecting for individuals (a growing situation) are told that we only give to charities that disperse funds to where they are of most need. It’s often tough saying no but each donation needs to be considered as a business proposition, after all it effectively comes out of our personal wallets which are not bulging at the moment.