Blog of Berg (Neil)

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Work and salesman...


I feel obliged to put up a cute picture of Joel, though I am not nearly as cheerful as he is. It was a yucky day of meetings and hearing negative junk at work. Today I was on the dull and frustrating end of my work ALL DAY.
I come home and think there is a Mormon on my doorstep talking to Anne...nope, it is a person from "Cause Marketing Solutions" named David. He was an excellent salesman. I thought he said the coupon book was a $7.50 donation to the nwba (wheelchair basketball), and he hit me up right after stepping out of a 1.5 hour traffic-filled drive home from frustrating work. Anne and I just had watched Murderball at Sal's and I had great esteem for wheelchair sports. So we got one--it was $20. Then I looked at the book--it was a 17.5% donation--a lousy $3.50 went to the nwba!
The charities we donate to are certified at 85% efficient at least...so I actually hunted the guy down and got my $20 back. When I did this, he said "look, I don't want to hear it"--which was kind of rude, but I was taking $5 from the salesman, so I probably deserved the abrupt remark. He did hand me the $20 though.
The breakdown of such "Cause Marketing Solutions" sales is such: $3.50 to the cause, $5 to the salesman, $1-$1.50 or so printing (that is a generous guess) and that leaves a whopping $10 for profit/overhead! I am really glad I got my $20 back! That kind of pandering and guilting for profit makes me angry. I was all prepared to give the darn $20 straight to nwba.org, but now I wonder how good it is to give to a good organization that raises money via a bad organization like that. Oh, the moral questions!!!
Dang, I really wish the salesman really would have just been a Mormon.

What would YOU do? Would you still donate? I feel like I owe a good charity $20 now. Or at least the NWBA a big $3.50. Please help me with this decision!

6 Comments:

  • Forget it. Only buy from people you know. HAVE A NICE DAY.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/11/2006 10:28 PM  

  • We try to donate to charities that donate at least 75% straight to the cause. Don't feel bad about it. Just donate it to your youth group at church on Sunday!

    By Blogger E-Speed, at 5/12/2006 4:37 PM  

  • Put it in Joel's college fund. Charity starts at home

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/13/2006 3:52 PM  

  • That night, I donated $3.91 (to make an actual post-PayPal donation of $3.50) to the NWBA from their website. I stopped thinking about it at that point.

    By Blogger Neil, at 5/13/2006 6:35 PM  

  • Sorry about your sinus infection, Neil!

    I laughed aloud to think of you chasing the salesman down... I wouldn't have had the guts before, but maybe now I will! You go!

    Joel is absolutely cute! I'll get my 'fix' regularly now that I know you post photos! Thanks!

    Peace, Karen :)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/19/2006 9:53 AM  

  • Hey,
    First off I want to apologize that you felt that you were being mislead. I am actually employed by Cause Marketing Solutions. I cannot speak for David's experience in the company, but just to clear things up, this is what actually goes on. Cause Marketing Solutions does donate 17.5% of all it's proceeds to the NWBA, making it the largest sponsor to the NWBA. The coupon books which we sell could jus be sold for complete profit. In every book, there are at least a couple hundred dollars in gift certificates for free pizzas, dinners, car washes, oil changes etc. I wish that the NWBA would recieve the donations that they need. But by doing the coupon books, we not only help the businesses and economy in your town, but as well as save you money, and help the NWBA at the same time. If someone cannot use the book, I direct them to the website, where they can do all their direct donating, but most people would enjoy the free pizza (from papa johns) and oil change (goodyear) (which are wellknown companies) while helping out the team. Thanks for understanding. I again apologize for your bad experience.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/06/2007 10:33 AM  

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