Wednesday, August 31, 2005

A hurricane of email solicitations

My heart goes out to the people in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana and Mississippi. The devastation there is truly awful. I will make a gift to help with relief efforts - probably for long term rebuilding. But how's this for a sign of how fast technology changes things - in the last few hours I have received solicitations to give to hurricane relief funds from:

--- The Democratic Party
--- People for the American Way
--- The International Community Foundation
--- United Airlines

Not necessarily your usual cast of characters for something like this. I'm sure to hear from the Red Cross and others soon, but here's my question: at what point does this impressive degree of organizing and outreach turn into spam and disorganization? My answer - right about now.

Yes, we were all impressed with the amount of money raised online in mere hours for tsunami relief back in December. The interesting twist to that story was how quickly one of the major relief organizations (Doctors without Borders) reached a point where they actually said "Stop! No more!" (see my post of January 5 2005, "Stop - we can't take it anymore"). But this time we've already tipped to the point where before the giving can flow we are getting smothered in requests. Let us hope the flood of requests doesn't dry up a potential flood of gifts.

No comments: