Buy less crap.

I found a link to this site via a newsletter I get (from Chief Marketer - and no, I am not a CMO but I am responsible for certain direct marketing efforts on the part of my company). It links to this article.

I used to subscribe to Utne and Mother Jones, and those two publications put me on a lot of cause-related mailing lists. It turned out to be an overkill of non-profit junk mail - there's no way to give to them all, especially when you've just gone down from two incomes to not quite 1 and a half, and plus you've got a baby....

Anyway, a lot of the non-profits would include freebies in their pieces - wrapping paper, notecards, etc... And then there's the freebies you get for donating just a paltry $15 - free book bag! A free plush baby seal! And so on and so on.... I don't know how any of the money donated actually gets down to those that need it.

Now I think the BuyLessCrap site makes a good point - it's better to directly donate, because instead of spending $30 on a T-shirt and have $5 go to the charity, you go and just donate $30, then obviously that's better. But think of the average American - you might not take the time to donate to a certain group, but hey I was going to buy this (insert product here) anyway AND I can feel good about myself - well, then $5 went to a (hopefully) deserving cause and that's awesome. And I look at myself - I donate to United Way every year because my company makes it easy - it just comes out of my paycheck and it's not even like I really see the money. We're the average American - make it easy and we'll do it.