Jim Klobuchar: Maybe We Need Therapy for Harassed Donors

Jim Klobuchar, Ecumen Changing Aging blog contributor, feels the pain of being inundated by fundraising calls and has an idea. . . .

Most of the American medical and insurance industries have been too traumatized grappling over the health plan to offer relief to the American public from a creeping threat to the sanity of millions.

A few days ago I received 12 solicitations for money. It was a typical day’s harvest. Five came by phone and seven by postal mail. Others are on the way by land or by sea as we speak and a few more undoubtedly will drop in by air unless the next snowstorm shuts down the runways.

I don’t resent any of them except for the one from a political party not of my choosing, warning me that the America stands on the brink of destruction at the hands of its opponents, who I have been supporting for 50 years.

It’s not hard to understand this daily outpouring of need. The government is broke. School systems are shutting down, non-profits are bailing, millions of jobs have been shipped overseas and millions of Americans are standing in line for food. The law enforcement agencies are stressed and the appeals to support what we once called our quality of life are running off the charts.

So most of the time when the phone rings it’s not from my worried relatives or from the church telling me to get up at 6 a.m. because it’s my turn to cook at the Saturday men’s breakfast. That was then. What’s wearing me down today is the aggregate guilt that’s being dumped on my head by the telephone solicitors.

Most of these people are schooled in the craft of maneuvering you into the awkward position of sounding cheap, insensitive uncaring or both. I don’t suppose you can blame them. A substantial share of the calls come from professional fund-raising companies that are paid to be both stubborn, relentless and sometimes sly. A lot of them represent prestigious services and life-saving organizations and have been instructed to insist on an irrevocable, God- is-our witness pledge over the phone to seal the commitment. The implication is that anything less brands the hapless respondent as a weasel or a selfish boor.

So yesterday morning the phone rang and the caller ID told me it was from a fund-raiser for a cause to which I have contributed several times. I answered and was greeted heartily. “Good morning,” I said, “how are you? I’m in Minnesota. Where are you.?”

“I’m in San Antonio, Texas. Thanks for asking. I see you have made a contribution to our appeal before and, again, thank you. We appreciate this and would like you to help us again because we know you are interested in our work.”

To which I answered. “I receive a number of calls like this every day, just like you do. If I responded with money to each one I’d be headed for the poor farm by the end of the month. I’ll tell you how I try to manage this and be fair. I don’t have unlimited means but I do give as much as I can. At the end of each week I take all of the appeals I have received, by phone or mail but especially by mail because that’s what I would like you to do. I go through these mailed appeals with their optional gift levels and ask, “Which one of these have I helped before, which one is new, which of these have the benefit of large national constituencies and which come from small, out of the way causes in need of friends—maybe a place for homeless kids in one of the Dakotas. After sifting through these, I try to make a reasonable decision. I know you do mailings so I’m asking you to send me your request by mail so that I can determine which groups to help this month.”

I thought this plan eminently reasonable. It was met by immediate rejection.

“We can’t do that. Sending you an envelope means extra expense, and we found that a lot of people promise and never come through.”

“You don’t mean you can’t mail the envelope,” I said, “You mean you’d rather not.”

“I want you to tell me whether you’re going to help us or not,” the voice said.

I tried to explain that I’d already helped this organization four times over a two-year span. “Now I understand you not only want me send you money again but I have to play by your rules.”

He hung up.

The net effect of this 5-minute conversation which I thought I approached with quiet reason and good will was to leave me feeling ambushed, infuriated and the reincarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge.

I’m considering endowing a small therapy service for abused donors.

I promise not to solicit you for contributions more than four times a year.

About Jim Klobuchar:

In 45 years of daily journalism, Jim Klobuchar’s coverage ranged from presidential campaigns to a trash collector’s ball. He has written from the floor of a tent in the middle of Alaska, from helicopters, from the Alps and from the edge of a sand trap. He was invited to lunch by royalty and to a fist fight by the late Minnesota Viking football coach, Norm Van Brocklin. He wrote a popular column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune for 30 years and has authored 23 books. Retiring as a columnist in 1996, he contributes to Ecumen’s “Changing Aging” blog, MinnPost.com and the Christian Science Monitor. He also leads trips around the world and an annual bike trip across Northern Minnesota. He’s climbed the Matterhorn in the Alps 8 times and has ridden his bike around Lake Superior. He’s also the proud father of two daughters, including Minnesota’s senior U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.