Charities these days are businesses, which is fine by me. When the call center agent tells me they are getting paid for the call, I am completely cool with that. But what really annoyed me about recent Childrens’ Society tactics was calling me up to try and increase my regular donation the night of Red Nose Day. If you’re not British Red Nose day probably means nothing to you, but its somewhat of an institution. Its a charity-a-thon with many of the UK’s leading comedians giving their time for free to try and raise some money for all kinds of good causes. You see, The Children’s Society basically overstepped the mark, by calling me on a night when I, like a huge proportion of the UK populace, was very likely to be making a contribution to another charity. The call felt greedy, and broke trust. Acting like a business is one thing, but destroying your covenant with regular supporters is quite another. Its possible to be too competitive, an example of what Charles Green calls trust-destroying selling. Charity fatigue is always going to be a potential problem in the hypermedia age. Maybe it was an “accident” but here is a word of advice to charities around the UK-take Red Nose Day off…
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