Are charities exploiting seniors?

[JackW254425]

It appears from my viewpoint, charities are exploiting the people that contribute. And this probably affects seniors the most. 

Why do a say this:

1. Once you give, they pass your information to the other charities.

2. I kept track of all the charities request I received through the US mail last year. I received request for donations from 21 different charities.  Six of them sent a request out more than once a month.

The frequent mailings are why I feel they are exploiting seniors.

Again, from my side, I am now considering, stopping donating to all charities.

[ch12713064]

Another option is to just donate to local charities, such as the firehouse, women's shelters, food banks, etc.  We do that and don't get any junk mail.  Just one yearly reminder.  

[GailL1]

@JackW254425 

I totally agree, it definitely discourages one from continuing their giving but it isn’t who you give to that is the problem, it is the firms that handle the collections for the charity and that’s how they are able to share your info.

For charities that do their own, why would they want to share their resources?  Other than it is a way to make more money - selling the contact info of their donors.

Wonder whatever happened to donating just for the good of it.  Not for a tax donation or anything else of benefit.

I have started doing direct contributions via Echecks - I do not send back their forms - all I need is an address to send the donation and a phone number for the org.  Then I just set it up and trigger the check when I want to do it - the check gets to them but it does not bear my address or contact info - so I don’t get anything back as me contributing, like a letter indicating the amount I donated for IRS purposes.

I am hoping this is a solution - it may or may not be - I will let you know of any repercussions.  

Have you ever done a QCD (qualified charitable distribution) via your annual IRA/401K RMD (required minimum distribution)?  My Trustee sends these out and I get the offset to my RMD but I don’t know if anything other than your name is given to the charity since the IRS is more concerned with the Trustee doing this than the charity receiving it.  I think next year maybe I will try a different charity and see if I start getting any more stuff in the mail from them or others going this route via donations.