Dear Charities

Hello! First, let me say that I believe you are doing good works out there in the world. You are really making a difference, and I do think that's awesome. Thank you for that. Also, thanks for the address labels! And the notepads. And calendars. The free T-shirt was thoughtful. The Christmas cards are cute, if sometimes a little bit odd. Free wolf postcards? Why not! And I can always use even more address labels, I suppose.

As much as I love free address labels with cute animals on them, I'm really going to have to take a stand. I get more mail in a week than the governments of small developing nations. Half of it is in my maiden name, and the rest is coming to me thanks to a few charities I do support who decided it would be a great goodwill-building gesture to sell my name and contact info to every 501 (c) 3 this side of the Atlantic (I'm looking at you, National Audubon Society! And don't try to deny it...I can tell every time I get one from your sellout because of the hilarious error you made in combining my name with MB's to create one gender-bending hyphenate.)

It's mostly the waste, because even though I recycle all the mailings you send me, that doesn't change the fact that you are producing what must be literal tons of mail every year, which is going out across the country to lots of people who, like me, just can't afford to support you right now and yet will receive their body weight in your mail and free gifts by the end of the decade. It's also bugging me that I'm sure you're sending lots and lots of mail to people who don't recycle, which is much worse. Finally, if you'd just think to include an opt-out postcard in the first mailing you send out to every potential member (or just don't send out more than one unsolicited mailing per year...or hell, even per quarter), I'm guessing you'd save a lot of money. A LOT. I know bulk rate is cheap and a lot of your costs are paid by the government, but if you'd just take the majority of the money you spend on printing, assembling, and distributing these mailings--each one with a return slip, a pre-printed return envelope, a letter, and (more often than not) a shiny strip of non-recyclable address labels (quite often annoyingly misspelled)--and you put that money toward whatever cause you're pushing, well...just imagine how much more the whales / trees / cheetahs / chimpanzees / wolves / dolphins would appreciate that money.

And charities that do get a chunk of my not-so-plentiful money--I'd appreciate it if you'd stop pimping me out to all your friends. It's irritating, and you're lucky I believe in you, because I have to tell you that each time I receive a piece of mail from yet another of your mailing list customers, it makes me consider "forgetting" to renew with you next year, just to stem the tide.

Sincerely yours,
the bleeding-heart but not made-of-money Velocibadgergirl