They glide through the streets of Center City like philanthropic stealth bombers, eager beavers with clipboards in hand, infesting every street corner like locusts.  You already know what these wide-eyed, undergraduate hipsters have to ask—“Do you have a moment for gay rights?”  “Do you have a moment to save the planet?”  “Do you have a moment to protect collective bargaining in this country?”  Honestly, their distinct causes seem to blend into vague nothingness because of their constant street side barrages.  On top of nearly attacking their victims in a fluster of questioning, they want your money and they want your money now.  They want a donation to support their cause.  However, it’s important to keep this in mind—these so-called philanthropists are paid workers.  They aren’t harassing you for your money out of the goodness of their hearts.  They are getting paid to do this.

I’ll admit it—about a year ago, I felt bad for one of the curb-side collectors, a cute young man off of 13th Street taking donations for a major civil-lliberties organization.  It was a freezing cold January day and he was bundled in a parka with matching woolen hat and mittens.  I gave him a crumpled five-dollar bill out of my wallet and signed a piece of paperwork acknowledging my donation.  No more than a week later, I was, quite literally, bombarded with mailings, emails, and phone calls from this organization, asking for more money, further donations, and greater levels of support.  I was getting phone calls from Washington, D.C. area firefighters’ unions about fair collective bargaining.  I was getting emails about racist accusations in Georgia.  I sort of knew this was going to happen, but it really put a rather poor taste in my mouth for the organization.  All they wanted was money, money, money, and I didn’t quite understand the overall picture of their message.  It was the worst five dollars that I’ve ever spent.

Speaking of the five dollars, I still don’t get how that money was actually used to fight and support the causes of equality that the fundraiser claimed my donation would aid.  If anything, I think my donation did nothing more than fund the payroll for the clipboard-toting representative.  Furthermore, the sheer amounts of these fundraising champions seem to be at an all-time frustrating high.  I’ve been told that there is an iPhone app that shows city walkers where the fundraisers are stationed so one can avoid highly concentrated areas of them while running errands (And I thought the “Dead Sea” mineral cream people at the mall were bad…!).

Besides the utter annoyance of the constant bombardment of these individuals, the conglomerates that operate these fundraising pyramids are fundamentally, ethically corrupt.  If an individual really has a passion to enact change, or to help in a philanthropic mission, it is best to donate time and money directly to the organization.  Roll up your sleeves and make direct action happen.  For example, I've held numerous at-home fundraisers for wonderfu local organizations as MANNA and The Attic where I'e asked guests to fill a piggy bank with a small donation instead of bringing a bottle of wine or some cookies.  This, I would argue, is far more rewarding than blindly assuming that the credit card donation that you made to a complete stranger to “support” Greenpeace is actually going to the cause.