Several years ago, I made a rather substantial donation (for me) to an org that purported to provide laptop computers to injured vets.
That got me on ‘the list’. Twice per month thereafter, I was receiving ‘we want more’ mailings. Some of those mailing were costly to produce, as they included pre-paid FEDEX return packs, etc.
It took 4 returns that I marked ‘REMOVE ME’ before they quit sending their mailings.
The total cost of their expensive ‘we want more’ mailings probably ate up half of my original donation. I concluded that they had turned into a professional fundraising org that spend more on fundraising than aiding vets. In one of their last mailings they indicated that they were joining one of the bigger ‘vet aid’ groups.
Regrettably, it becomes more difficult to find ‘real’ groups/orgs that actually do disperse aid as they claim.
I think we got those same mailings ....and WWF also sends out lots of stuff...so I finally told them to shove it! Fisher House will get our contributions.
The same thing happens when one donates to USO. Several years ago, I read a story that alleged that USO provides its donor list to its data processing contractor, which the contractor can sell freely for its own benefit and that the contractor is related to one of the USO executives.