From the Editor: Stop Asking for Money

What a great article. Now that I’m living downtown, I’ve been feeling the same annoyance, accompanied by guilt. Then I’m annoyed that I feel guilty.

Most of the causes are good. But if I gave a dollar to every person that asked me for one for whatever reason between my apartment and the market, I’d seriously be out $10-$20 every time I went shopping.

Housing Works sounds brilliant! I’m all about donating, I really am. But you’re right, the asking-for-handouts on the street is starting to get overwhelming.

So glad you wrote this Julie. Somehow it’s easier to get used to beggars in the street than being asked if I want to donate to the Jimmy Fund every time I go to pay for my groceries, or to buy candy bars (which I rarely ever eat) on the way in and out of different stores. It really makes shopping an unpleasant experience.

I love to give, but there’s a limit how many causes I can donate to. I want to give where I know where the money is going, so I often prioritize organizations that I know the leadership of personally or have seen in action. All of us focus on different causes. I’d rather give $50 to provide one woman housing, food and job security for a month in Thailand’s red light district than give that $50 for cat food.

And you’re right, plain asking isn’t the most effective method. If these organizations want cheerful givers, they need to come up with new, more interactive strategies.

I think I know just the woman you mean. Sometimes she’s crazy cat lady. Other times, she’s protesting against pornography. Always she’s poster child for the mentally ill who were let our of hospitals back in the 70s and 80s.

Giving money on the streets of NY is generally an exercise in futility.

When i first moved there, it was after a year in Israel and I have money to every one. It didn’t take long to learn that just isn’t sustainable. Out of all the people I met begging for money uptown, only one actually did eventually move off the streets and got a job driving a truck.

Otherwise, it does seem this give within a non-asking framework seems to be a better fit these days. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because we’ve become more selfish and thus need to get something in return. But mostly, it’s because there’s such a stream of people asking, asking and so many of those people are not legitimate.

How about the solicitations from ATMs? Getting harassed by bloody bank machines! And sometimes the way they word it and place it during the transaction, it would be easy to make a mistake and accidentally say yes.

@Tom (and everyone)…I was appalled to learn from an Australian newspaper (not sure if it’s the same here or not) that many of those clipboard toting people are FREELANCERS who are making money. There are agencies who get signed on by these organizations to solicit donations. Many of these agencies take a huge cut, like 90% or so, for the first year…then the cut goes down – the idea being that the org. would keep the agency on for a long time so as to average out the costs. Some of these people working the sidewalks are professionals – making either a flat rate or, if they’re really good, a commission – and they will switch causes as it fits. It’s one thing giving money to people who genuinely believe in the cause they are soliciting for but for someone to be making commission…

And by the way Julie, we gave $1 to the cat lady!

Hell yeah, throw a party and most everyone is willing to donate (especially if there is free food and drink involved).

What IS up with the sudden onslaught of supermarket soliciting? Just trying to buy some floss here people, and I’m suddenly feeling like a horrible excuse for a human being for not giving a dollar to some company raising money for breast cancer research that knowingly continues to put breast-cancer-causing chemicals in their products. F’in ridiculous.

I’m actually ok with the occasional (read: once a year) solicitation by mail from orgs I’ve donated to in the past. For me, it’s a nice reminder. Street people collecting money for the environment? I know you are 21 and desperately need to get paid, otherwise you wouldn’t be canvassing, but I’m still gonna cross the street when I see you standing at the next corner.

This is great, the article that is…not the begging. It drives me crazy. I do PR for a nonprofit agency and many of the volunteers want to set up a table or something of that sort at these festivals to tell them about the organization and I have to shut ‘em down everytime. People want something real and handing out brochures or asking for money on the street isn’t anywhere close to being real. Volunteerism, nonprofits and so on are about relationships, yet why do they insist on recruiting in non-relational ways? It simply doesn’t work.