I kinda like some charities. Not the ones that show up once a year to stand in front of shopping centre doors and ring obnoxious bells at you. The quiet ones that never come near you in person, and send you things in envelopes instead.<\/p>\n
I like these charities because, well, they’re not annoying me in person. And because some of them send me pre-printed address labels with their donation solicitations. At the rate I\u0092m going, I may never have to actually write my return address ever again.<\/p>\n
I’\u0092m beginning to come to the conclusion that you can judge a charity just based on the number and quality of free preprinted address labels they send you. I\u0092m not sure what sort of judgment one can have about them but there\u0092s one to be made.
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\nI\u0092ve only received labels from five charities so far, but I suppose that\u0092s enough. For now.<\/p>\n
I\u0092ll list them before I get into any numbers\u0085.<\/p>\n
I think that\u0092s roughly alphabetical.<\/p>\n
Just based on numbers, March of Dimes comes in first. I didn\u0092t bother to actually count, but I think that they sent me slightly more than 72, which is what the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society sent me. I also got a few stickers, which I assume are intended to \u0091seal\u0092 the envelopes with, or something. I\u0092m not entirely sure, but I got those stickers from both of these charities.<\/p>\n
In third for numbers is the Paralyzed Veterans of America, who sent me 60 mailing labels. No stickers.<\/p>\n
Then comes the Nature Conservancy with a sheet of twenty.<\/p>\n
Dead last is PeTA, even though they sent me two sheets of labels at two different times. Each sheet only had eighteen preprinted labels, and two very large stickers that aren\u0092t appropriate for that whole \u0091sealing the envelope\u0092 thing. These stickers are the same on both sheets. One reads \u0093I\u0092m an ele-friend. Circuses are no fun for animals.\u0094 The other, \u0093Animals in Laboratories. Unseen They Suffer Unheard They Cry In Agony They Linger In Loneliness They Die PeTA\u0094<\/p>\n
All the words are written exactly like that. Well, not exactly. The lowercase \u0091e\u0092 is actually the size of the P and the T, but I don\u0092t care. I think that their logo is a wonderfully unintentional subliminal message regarding exactly how important the \u0091ethical\u0092 part is to them.<\/p>\n
Anyway\u0085.<\/p>\n
I don\u0092t count them as being higher, even though I got two sheets of eighteen, because each sheet came in a different mailing. If they\u0092d sent me 26 all at once, they\u0092d be higher than the Nature Conservancy.<\/p>\n
That\u0092s just quantity, though. Now comes quality, because the spiffiness of the address label just has to be a big factor.<\/p>\n
Number one is a tough one, but I\u0092m going to have to go with the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Their labels are the gold-foil type metallic shiny ones. Very fancy. The rest just sent plain ones.<\/p>\n
Next comes the Nature Conservancy. While they didn\u0092t send very many, half of their labels had a drawing of an incredibly ugly baby bird that they were trying to get me to donate money to save. That\u0092s just cool.<\/p>\n
March of Dimes is a reluctant third. Their labels have rather childish crayon drawings.<\/p>\n
Fourth is the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Theirs have Ziggy on them. I\u0092m not entirely thrilled by them.<\/p>\n
Fifth, as I\u0092m sure you\u0092ve already guessed, is PeTA again. Not because I don\u0092t like PeTA. This is absolutely based on quality, not my dislike for the group.<\/p>\n
The reason they\u0092re fifth is because their address labels are obviously printed out on some cheap printer somewhere in their main office. They\u0092re all off-centre. The second sheet, they were actually on a slant. They\u0092re just feeding these pre-printed [with the pictures and colours] sheets of labels into a Lexmark and cranking out labels like that.<\/p>\n
At least the other charities had the decency to pay a professional to make their labels. If I wanted crappy, off-centre, slanty address labels, I\u0092d go buy an old typewriter and some of that OfficeMax label type paper and type them myself.<\/p>\n
I\u0092m not entirely sure what this all works out to. I didn\u0092t think ahead that far, actually. I do know that PeTA works out to be last, and I\u0092d have to go with the PVA for the first. The other three lurk in the middle somewhere, I guess, because I\u0092m not really sure how to balance the very-few-but-cool and the whole-lots-but-not-so-cool to figure out what order they go in.<\/p>\n
It really doesn\u0092t matter, in the end. Just so long as I\u0092m getting lots and lots of free address labels. I like free. I like not having to write out my address. These things are good.<\/p>\n
The only thing that could be better \u0096 and not by much, mind you \u0096 would be if the envelopes included with bills were postage-prepaid. And possibly self-sealing, without the damned licky-glue, because bill envelopes never taste good.<\/p>\n
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I kinda like some charities. Not the ones that show up once a year to stand in front of shopping centre doors and ring obnoxious bells at you. The quiet ones that never come near you in person, and send … Continue reading