Quote:
Originally Posted by Axe
Holly,
My .02:
I looked at doing a donation per item sold to a big SOF worthwhile organization (not one listed by the author of the book) several years ago. I figured it would be a good thing to do for an organization I believed in, and would give the organization good publicity.
I contacted the group and to my great surprise, felt that I received a charlatan's reception from the beginning..I got the third degree from a standoffish member who never bothered to even thank me for offering to help them out.
I was sent information on what would be involved. Frankly, the amount of paperwork and degree of inspection the organization would have demanded us to submit to for us to be allowed to say "We are going to donate $X.00 per item" was extreme enough to turn me off to the whole idea. I elected not to do the donation program at all.
IIRC, the group wanted to inspect my company's tax returns, our sales records, etc, at our cost and would require us to regularly send the information off site for them to review. The language in the agreement I got was adversarial, to say the least. I understand that some cheaters would take advantage of the organization and use their name in vain, but I found the group's requirements off-putting when I was going to give them a donation for no reason other than a desire to do a good deed.
Any money they would have gotten from us would have been more than what they were already getting, zero, and more than what they ended up getting from us because of their standoffish response, zero.
I don't want to mention the name of the group, because they do very good things and I don't want to give them bad press just because I got a case of the red-ass from them, but I have to say that my experience at their hands put enough of a bad taste in my mouth that I have decided to donate to other groups in the place of the group I contacted since.
If other groups have the same commercial donation policies, I can understand why someone wouldn't want to go through the effort to do everything that might be required to be allowed to state the names of the groups they are going to donate to.
The author claims to be self-publishing, and that justifies the lack of specific named charities even more to me since his publishing and marketing costs would vary.
Nonetheless, if you buy the book based on the charitable donation the author says he will make, you are taking the word of a stranger that the proceeds are actually going to end up in the hands of a worthwhile group and there are no guarantees it will indeed happen.
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Axe sir,
Was waiting for RL or a QP here on PS.com to give the green light go!
But, I realized that this would not have been posted at all, had it not been legit!
Hence the integrity of PS.com.
Thanks though, for your post!
Holly