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everyone hates charities on the street

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

So it turns out that I'm not alone in tiring of those people who pester you on the street in the name of charities.

They came up tonight in my marketing class, and it turns out that they not only irritate others, they actually intimidate some people. I mentioned that I'd written to WWF to complain and that WWF happily had had their people pulled from my stretch of King Street. The news was well received.

The funny corollary to all of this is that those aggravating street barkers are actually an effective way of raising funds, despite being universally disliked. One student in my class has worked for a charity and said that the street pests were routinely a top earner for the amount expended. It's theorized that they mostly play on negative emotions, though, and as such I disapprove.