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Comment by jseliger | Hacker News Reader

This is incidental to the main argument, but I think it's important enough to observe here:

Since that letter, I have learned more. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to all senators on May 6, noting that in the view of the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, “there are at least eleven OLC opinions on the targeted killing or drone program.”

I joined the ACLU a couple years ago in part because I'd read a lot about the various illegal and immoral activities parts of the government has done and didn't see an obvious way for me, a somewhat normal, random guy, to do much about it. There's a lot of (justified) Internet outrage over the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki, widespread spying, and so forth. But without converting outrage to action, the outrage means very little.

Does my $50 do much on its own? Perhaps not. But it means something.

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I once gave them a similar amount, probably 10 years ago. They have since spent at least that amount on postage and call center labor asking me for more money. This greatly discourages me from wanting to give more to them, even though I like what they do with their non-outreach funding (however small that may be)

I made the error of giving Public Citizen a few bucks a few years ago. They since sold my name to dozens of other organizations. There was absolutely no chance to opt-out when I donated.

It's amazing how quickly an NGO can burn off its good will.

Well, that sounds unlikely given that [their Charity Navigator information](http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...). Perhaps you over-estimate the cost of fundraising. 12 cents of each dollar are spent on fundraising, and 84 cents of each dollar are spent on their aims.

It is annoying that they keep calling you, though.

Those numbers are averages. Maybe they get a lot of larger donors or recurring donors. It's quite possible that they wasted his entire donation trying to convert him from a $50 donor into a $1000+ donor.

Possibly. But if so, they do that for a simple reason: "Upselling" past donors will in most situations have substantially higher conversion rates than obtaining new donors. It may not have been cost-effective in his specific case, but it's likely a cost-effective use of their resources on average.

But it's a bait-and-switch. The donor expects that their $50 contribution will be 90%+ spent on the cause, but it's not.

My understanding that much of the legal work is donated so outreach seems like a reasonable expenditure, particularly if it increases revenues or brings in more donated legal work.

If "it increases revenue" is one of the better reasons a charity can offer for an activity, I think they should stop it.

The thought behind that is that they should be maximizing their effectiveness not their revenues, and so should have lots of better things to discuss.

As the other poster I believe was trying to point out 'if it increases revenue' is the wrong way to justify spending money to make more money.

Since revenue is not profit, and most charities are non-profits anyway, more revenue does not necessarily equate to more money for betterment of the causes the charity serves.

As a complete hypothetical scenario examining two extremes which hopefully do not exist.

Charity B.A.D. could spend 100% of its revenue on seeking more donations and maintaining existing ones, leaving no resources for actually doing anything related to their cause, or distributing non monetary resources donated even. But they double revenue every year.

Charity P.O.R. Could spend 100% of its revenue, which are fixed at $10 a year, on advancing their cause.

My entire point is instead of saying 'increases revenues' you should say 'increases the money it budgets toward advancing its cause.'

I had the same experience. After I let my membership expire, I continued to receive solicitations from other organizations until I finally contacted the ACLU to ask that my personal information no longer be shared with other organizations.

Remarkably, and to their credit, the solicitations from the ACLU and other groups did cease. However, despite my strong personal support of the ACLU's legal and political stands, I am not willing to submit myself to that level of junk mail and information sharing again.

Is there any other charity that acts differently?

I put them on my list of people I dontate to sometime last year, but I had the same experience as you. They utterly hassle you to the point of harassment once your "membership" begins to expire.

A reminder email or letter, fine. Maybe even a courtesy phone call, I can see that.

I've received no less than 7 or 8 letters from them, two or three phone calls, and I'm not sure how many emails because Google helpfully began filing them away as spam.

At least NPR takes the hint. Once your membership lapses, you get a single email/letter from them.

I've been meaning to join as a member for a long time.

https://www.aclu.org/secure/our-civil-liberties-are-under-at...

Are you not worried that joining the ACLU could lead to problems for you down the line?

In what way? (I mean, yeah, far right wing reactionaries might take exception to it, but they probably wouldn't like a lot of other things I say or do, anyway.)

Like what?

If that's a real concern, then that should be even more reason to join or donate, as it would indicate the situation in the US is vastly worse than most assume.

What problems? The only people I know who look on the ACLU with scorn are right-wing Christian bigots. Screw them.

What other things do you not do, in case it upsets wingnuts?

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