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Seven
Tips for Reducing Unwanted Mail and Phone Appeals
If you are wondering how to cope with
the avalanche of charity mailings and telephone calls, CharityWatch
offers the following suggestions.
Be
selective in your giving. Whenever you donate,
no matter how small your gift may be, your name will be added to
the charity’s donor list. This ensures you will continue to
receive appeals from that charity, as well as from other groups
to which the charity has rented or exchanged its mailing list. Research
the groups you wish to support—the CharityWatch Charity
Rating Guide is a useful resource—and don't feel guilty
about withholding funds from the rest, even if they send you address
labels! By concentrating your charitable donations, you can increase
the amounts your selected charities receive while reducing unwanted
mail from other groups.
When
you give money to a charity or nonprofit group, enclose
a note requesting that the organization not rent, sell or exchange
your name, address and giving history with anyone else. You can
make future contributions contingent on the charity respecting your
concerns. Click here
for a sample note. Keep in mind that you want to balance your interest
in privacy with your interest in helping a charity obtain additional
revenue by selling or trading donor names.
Write to individual
charities to stop or reduce the frequency of solicitations.
If you are interested in supporting a charity, but are concerned
about the waste and inconvenience resulting from excessive soliciting,
ask the charity to decrease the frequency of its solicitations.
Alternately, make future contributions contingent on the charity
respecting your concerns. If you do not wish to support a charity,
ask the charity to delete your name from its mailing lists. It may
take a bit of detective work to be deleted from “the charity’s”
mailing lists. Because many nonprofits rent lists from other groups,
they do not keep the lists themselves and therefore cannot delete
your name. (This is true of most mail solicitations, whether from
a charity or not.) Save the mailing label and the “reply device”
from these mailings. They are likely to contain codes that indicate
the list your name came from. Ask the organization that mailed you
the solicitation for the name of the organization from which it
rented that list. Then contact that organization and ask that your
name not be rented, sold or exchanged. With your note, remember
to include the address label from the envelope containing the appeal.
Contact the
Direct Marketing Association to
have your name removed from the mailing lists of some direct mail
marketing companies and nonprofit organizations. Click here
to do this online or write to:
Mail Preference Service
Direct Marketing Association
PO Box 643
Carmel, NY 10512
Say that you wish to have your name removed
from both commercial and nonprofit organizations’ lists. It
may take three months or more before you see a drop in unsolicited
mail coming to your home. Suggested wording of a “no junk mail”
request is: “I do not wish to receive any unsolicited advertising,
sales or other mail solicitations at this address. I include all
variations on my name, i.e., Mary Doe, M. Doe, MS Doe, etc.”
Unfortunately, this may not reduce your volume of unwanted charity
mail because many nonprofit groups do not utilize the Direct Marketing
Association service.
Credit bureaus
have a toll-free number-1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688)-that will
prevent having pre-approved credit offers sent to you for two years.
You can also notify the three major credit bureaus that you do not
want them to disclose personal information about you for promotional
purposes. Write to:
Equifax,
Inc., Options
PO Box 740123
Atlanta,GA 30374-0123
Experian, Consumer Opt Out
701 Experian Pkwy.
Allen, TX 75013
Trans Union LLC, Name Removal
Option
PO Box 97328
Jackson, MS 39288-7328
Include your social security number in
letters to Equifax and Trans Union, and your date of birth also
in letters to Trans Union.
To reduce unwanted
telephone appeals, click
here
to do this online or write to:
Telephone Preference Service
Direct Marketing Association
PO Box 1559
Carmel, NY 10512
Say that you do not want to receive any
advertising or sales calls, provide your phone number, name, address,
and signature, and ask to be added to the national “do not
call” list. You can also handle unwanted telemarketing calls
on an individual basis-just tell the caller to put you on the “do
not call” list. Unfortunately, this may not lessen the interruptions
from charity telemarketing because many nonprofit groups do not
utilize the Direct Marketing Association service. You can use the
sample note on this page to reduce the frequency and control the
time of telemarketing calls from a specific charity.
National "Do Not Call" List: Unfortunately,
nonprofits are not required to use this list. However it may reduce
calls from for-profit fundraising companies that nonprofits hire.
To get on the list, call 888-382-1222 or log on to http://www.donotcall.gov/.
Ask
your state and local officials. Some 13 states in
the U.S. are addressing the issue of unwanted mail and telephone solicitations.
Check with the consumer protection agencies in your state and county
concerning laws or regulations affecting unsolicited mail. Charities
are often exempt from restrictions, but there are increasing efforts
at the state level to reduce the burden of unwanted mail. Finally,
be understanding of honest errors made by conscientious charities.
Charities with the best of intentions may make solicitation errors.
Data input mistakes, sometimes caused by poor donor handwriting, that
result in duplicate mailings or other inconveniences are bound to
happen when a charity is processing many thousands, if not millions,
of names. So if you're one of the unlucky victims of a charity solicitation
error, be patient and give the charity a chance to correct its mistake.
Click for the Fundraising Reduction Notice
(Link will open in new window)
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