Sucky bludgers can get bent

[portia911]

It's that time of year again. Every school in the area is doing school fundraising and have the novel idea of asking me to donate hundreds of dollars worth of stock for a raffle. They actually seem suprised when I tell them no I will not be donating anything as they are the 12th school this month to ask me and giving stuff away is a fast track to insolvency for small businesses.

Or the sucky old bags who come in wanting thousands of dollars of free stuff for a sports tournament

SOB1 + 2 - Sucky old Bags
Me - Big meany

SOB1 to SOB2 (in my ear shot) Oh this is interesting, I've never been in here before who would have thought they did so many different things
SOB2 to SOB1 - Oh yes, this would be wonderful
SOB1 to Me - Hello we're organising a ladies Golf Tournment and we would like you to donate some prizes. We never even knew you were here and these products would be perfect for the ladies playing
Me - Really. So you've never been here before?
SOB2 - No
Me - I'm sorry but I have a huge amount of regular customers who would obviously be given first priority on any such requests
SOB1 Oh but it would be great advertising for you
Me- And How is that. Maybe you could give me an idea of how much income directly attributable to this event I would make
SOB2 We just thought you would like to give it to us
Me - No. It does'nt work like that


or

HSW - Humungeous Social Worker
Me - Me

HSW - Helo I'm Blah blah. We are having a Social Welfare conference in 6 weeks time and we would like you to donate a bottle of wine for each of the delgates for their welcome packs.
Me - And how many would that be?
HSW - 350
Me - (many many lulz latter) Ok so you want me to just give you $6000 dollars worth of stock? Not going to happen.
HSW - your missing a important opportunity here!
ME - For what? Bankrupcty?

I hate these f**k heads!!!!!!!!

[simpleyme]

the locals and community ,who never shop at our store come out of the woodwork in droves when they need donations and it somehow is always a great opportunity for us to make money

yes giving away hundreds of dollars to people who will tell you how they live and work in the community and drive buy everyday and have never been in before just warms my heart to no end

[pile of monkeys]

Donations. Ugh. We get probably 15-20 donation requests a week. Every week. The owner is a community-minded small business owner, so she will make donations, but 99% of the time, they're requests from clients or employees, or an organization she is personally involved in. We have a budget for donations, and when we have met the quarterly budget, we let the beggars know, so they don't bother us with the 4 million follow up phone calls (it works about 5% of the time). The other thing that gets me is when the donation seeker starts their spiel, the front desk lets them know they need to contact the owner, and to please leave any literature they have, thank you, have a nice day. And then they continue their sales pitch! To the people we just told you have no power to make those decisions! Not winning any points.

My favorites are the school organizations. Especially the private school ones. Umm, parents? You are responsible for financing your child's education, at least the part that isn't financed by sucking every last penny out of my tax dollars. If your glee club wants to go to Disney, your damn parents can pay for it. If your football team needs new uniforms, PAY FOR THEM! We do donate to local schools- we do a drive for paper, pens, markers, notebooks, the kind of necessities that teachers end up paying for out of pocket.

I have been in the position of seeking donations before. I started with people I knew, or stores/restaurants where I am a regular, and was always polite and brief, first finding out who I needed to talk to so I wasn't wasting anyone's time. And if they declined to donate, that was that. I thanked them for their time and left them alone.

[SubwayGirl]

I understand completely. I don't mind a few donation requests, but sometimes it can get ridiculous. Someone always wants something for free. I don't mind doing donations for good causes, but I have to admit even those can get annoying sometimes. I really dislike the donation requests that are made on behalf of companies that want a donation for their employees. Jeesh, spend some money on your employees! Don't give them stuff that you have called around for and gotten for free.

I think I may have posted this at one time, but my favorite was this company that was having an Employee Appreciation Dinner. They had it catered, not by me, and they had a mixup. They wanted 500 cookies. I was really excited, until I found out they wanted them for FREE and immediately.

[Aramika]

I think I may have posted this at one time, but my favorite was this company that was having an Employee Appreciation Dinner. They had it catered, not by me, and they had a mixup. They wanted 500 cookies. I was really excited, until I found out they wanted them for FREE and immediately.

You have posted about that before. I remember reading it and either laughing or shaking my head in disbelief.

[edible_hat]

The community organisations my family have been involved with (school, Scouts, and now a non-profit brass band and the local Deaf society) have found that the way to get donations is to say something like "We would greatly appreciate anything you might wish to donate" and let the donors decide what they're giving. Such as:

-new tents, cookware, and half a vehicle (i.e. the troop only had to come up with half the price) for the Scouts
-white goods for the school to raffle
-rent paid on the band's practice hall for 2 years (and since that's the main expense, it put the band in the black for the first time in a decade)
-wine, restaurant vouchers and surfwear for the Deaf society raffle

Also I've noticed my boss is far more likely to donate to groups that ask for "a donation" than ones that ask for something specific.

[KhirasHY]

I've always been kinda iffy on donations...one, I've found too many phone scammers trying to get money from me (ha ha, nice try), and two, I generally only donate to a few people. For instance, I will send stuff to Child's Play, and I've actually gotten the hotel to give things like meals and free nights out to charity police raffles and such.

But I've never done so for any other group just for calling me...why? Because I don't know you...sorry.

[simpleyme]

I had a guy ask me if he could set up candy machine in the front of our store for charity

we are a convenience store this is how we are trying to actually make money is by selling candy so I was not real hip on the idea of someone taking up a big spot permanently right in side the front door, but I was pondering it and asking for more information about the charity and who would service the machine

after just a bit I figured out that this was really this guys way of making a living setting up candy machines at businesses and giving a tiny amount to charity ,I asked him to leave me info on the charity and his contact info and i would call him later , he suddenly got belligerent insisted I make the call to the charity while he was present and make a decision right then and there

I told him he had suddenly made my decision quite easy and I told him to leave and never come back

[Sheldonrs]

I'm amazed at the number of calls I get asking us to sponsor some charity event or other. We ARE a charity!!! How the heck are we supposed to justify using the money we raise to sponsor another charity?

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

This is why I only would donate services to the school raffles. Doing a free tunr up on a computer takes me 30 minutes, speeds the system up many times over (it's usually stupid shit running in the background or spyware) and costs me nothing more than time.

Which is still valuable, but isn't going to bankrupt me...and usually brings in more work when they have me upgrade things.

M

[blas]

Ugh.....two of the jobs I've worked at have had a program to donate to the United Way (not really sure if it's local or country wide, just helps needy people out).

I understand upon hire, being asked if you want to donate a part of each check to the organization. Saying no is not a bad thing, and it's really no big deal, it's a partnership.

I can also understand posting signs around the workplace reminding employees that they are able to sign up for donations out of their checks at any time.

What chaps my ass though?

Two weeks ago at our quarterly meeting, the HR Rep who I guess runs the whole show, decided to give EVERYONE a guilt trip. She even made a chart of how many employees had signed up to donate, and how it's spiked over the years then started declining. Not so oddly enough, within the last two years, it's declined a lot. Gee, I wonder why? No one can spare even a few dollars out of their check anymore!

That guilt trip was just epic. It made a lot of us angry. I'm surprised none of us tried to trip her when she walked back to her chair. "The United Way is for helping people. Surely you all would like to know there was someone to help you out if you were in a bad situation and didn't know where else to turn? It just disappoints me to see less and less people donating every year. This is very important. Honestly, you won't even notice a few dollars coming out of every check."

Maybe some people won't notice, maybe some will. Most people who work at the factory (well, ok, us peons who don't make six figures a year) live STRICTLY paycheck to paycheck. Most of us come real close to broke or even FLAT broke just before the next check comes to relieve us. I don't mean to get going on a rant or start getting scandalous here, but that woman really needed to just STFU. You CANNOT help anyone until you can help yourself.

If she is that into it, why doesn't she just donate 10% of her yearly salary? Surely she won't notice that $10,000 missing.

[cinema guy]

A voucher that gets someone in the store and may get them buying more stuff may be a worthwhile donation. I know the cinema gives out tickets (I assume there is a budget), but the assumption is people will buy food and drink, thereby generating income.

[angelicafire]

The community organisations my family have been involved with (school, Scouts, and now a non-profit brass band and the local Deaf society) ...--rent paid on the band's practice hall for 2 years (and since that's the main expense, it put the band in the black for the first time in a decade)

Aha! That's why I can't find any patrons for the non-profit brass band I'm in! The only one in the world interested in sponsoring one is already taken!

Seriously though, thanks for supporting your local musicians. They appreciate it more than they can ever say.

[edible_hat]

Aha! That's why I can't find any patrons for the non-profit brass band I'm in! The only one in the world interested in sponsoring one is already taken!

Try large local businesses... the one that paid the band hall rent was a huge clothing store that started out as a door-to-door shirt salesman. The band had to give two in-store perfomances. Sadly, the band then went under anyway due to lack of local musicians (which is still going on... my dad is the b-flat bass player for 4 bands, they plan their jobs around him and each other!)

[smileyeagle1021]

Yeah, I've been on the other side asking for donations (for my Eagle Scout project... refurbishing a picnic area and benches in a local park)... do you know what worked best, talking to the businesses that were *gasp* near the park, and I didn't ask for anything specific (well I kinda did, I asked for specific types of supplies, but wasn't picky other than that), just "I'm planning on refurbishing the picnic area at the park down the street and am unable to pay for all the supllies myself, would you be willing to provide some of the materials for the project" (and for the record, I still ended up spending nearly $300 out of pocket, so it's not like I just wanted hand outs... granted most of that was for things like food for volunteers, fuel for generators, fuel used in trucks moving supplies and cars moving volunteers, etc).