Charities sending coins in the mail

[lorraineb]

I keep getting charities sending me coins in the mail as part of their donation pitch. I received this one from the March of Dimes today:



It may just be me, but a charity that sends money to me in the mail that they could use for their cause seems like one that doesn't take care of their money very well...

[corn18]

That does seem odd.

[SFGloria]

I've received these too. Why do they do that?

[jeffrey]

The simple reason is that doing so increases the amount of donations that they get.

Instead of simply throwing away the donation pitch, it makes you look closer at it and consider donating. It's also a relatively inexpensive way to grab this attention. A lot of charities give away free address labels or some small item like that -- a low denomination coin is less expensive than giving away those in the donation pitch.

[disneysteve]

The simple reason is that doing so increases the amount of donations that they get.

Instead of simply throwing away the donation pitch, it makes you look closer at it and consider donating. It's also a relatively inexpensive way to grab this attention. A lot of charities give away free address labels or some small item like that -- a low denomination coin is less expensive than giving away those in the donation pitch.

Yep. They aren't wasting money at all. They know exactly what they're doing. Ten cents is a very small price to pay to entice someone to donate. Recipients feel more obligation to make a donation when they have received something of value, even very minimal value - a dime, some address labels, etc. The charity isn't being wasteful at all. They're actually being quite shrewd.