WWTBAM Bored

Besides my usual charitable donations last year, I donated a llama to the Heifer Project.

On my answering machine last evening, I had a recorded message from the director of that charity, thanking me for the donation. I had already received the usual letter in the mail acknowledging it.

How would the rest of you feel about getting a canned "thank you" call? I may just be too annoyed at robocalls in general to appreciate them, but would anyone care for it?

Congratulations you llama-giver!!

I personally do not respond to robo-calls. I have never gotten a thank-you via robo-call; don't know how I'd feel, but usually charity thank-yous are by mail anyway (mine are, anyway) so its not doing-away-with the personal touch.

We get robo-calls from bill collectors for Dell Computers at work; I await a call from a human bill collector, & respond to that. Eventually they'll get wise.

MarleysGh0st wrote:Besides my usual charitable donations last year, I donated a llama to the Heifer Project.

On my answering machine last evening, I had a recorded message from the director of that charity, thanking me for the donation. I had already received the usual letter in the mail acknowledging it.

How would the rest of you feel about getting a canned "thank you" call? I may just be too annoyed at robocalls in general to appreciate them, but would anyone care for it?

How did you get one of the 0-dollar contestants to agree to be donated?

ghostjmf wrote:We get robo-calls from bill collectors for Dell Computers at work; I await a call from a human bill collector, & respond to that. Eventually they'll get wise.

Why isn't Rich U. paying their bills?

earendel wrote: How did you get one of the 0-dollar contestants to agree to be donated?

Maybe some of them are eager to leave the country, after MBFFB gets through with them?

Marley says:

Why isn't Rich U. paying their bills?

I don't know. My office certainly tells them to when its our bills. And can prove it! (Other depts gotta take care of their own bills; sometimes companies don't have that straight, so we straighten them.) I am currently not allowed to pursue it beyond the "we told them to" stage.

MarleysGh0st wrote:Besides my usual charitable donations last year, I donated a llama to the Heifer Project.

That's very nice of you. Will they send you letters and pictures from your llama?

Zap was actually a tax deduction. I aquired him for a $200 donation.

By the way, we saw Xamine on Saturday. He doesn't like riding in cars and he has some other quirks that the owners are dealing with. Anyway, they are thinking of adopting his kennel mate, Julie. She's a sweet dog, but is black, and has a badly head break in her foot and limps, so she hasn't been adopted.

Also, Dumpling, the other dog we could have adopted, just got adopted, so I don't feel as guilty about not picking her.

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Will they send you letters and pictures from your llama?

No, they say they keep their expenses down by aggregating donations together, so I won't get pictures of "my" llama or reports about which family it goes to. And, alas, that means I won't be able to suggest naming it "Meredith" or anything for an audition hook.

MarleysGh0st wrote:Besides my usual charitable donations last year, I donated a llama to the Heifer Project.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MarleysGh0st wrote:

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Will they send you letters and pictures from your llama?

No, they say they keep their expenses down by aggregating donations together, so I won't get pictures of "my" llama or reports about which family it goes to. And, alas, that means I won't be able to suggest naming it "Meredith" or anything for an audition hook.

Of course you can!

Just write a note asking that your llama be named that.

I have never received a robo call. At least you got a thank you, but a personal call would have been a lot nicer. How did you donate this animal?

Marley, as long as you got the more formal "thank you" in the mail, you should look upon the call simply as an added "We appreciate you very much."

Since it was on your machine, are you sure it was a robo call? Maybe it was a personal call, but the guy read something because he didn't really need you to call him back.

MarleysGh0st wrote:

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Will they send you letters and pictures from your llama?

No, they say they keep their expenses down by aggregating donations together, so I won't get pictures of "my" llama or reports about which family it goes to. And, alas, that means I won't be able to suggest naming it "Meredith" or anything for an audition hook.

We were supposed to name it? I thought we were supposed to cook it! My bad........


*burp* Scuse me.......

geoffil wrote:How did you donate this animal?

Well, I actually donated cash. They have a catalog of animals that they provide in their projects, with various prices, either for a whole animal or for a share of one. As the fine print says:

Gifts made through this catalog represent a gift to the entire mission. To help the most number of families move toward self-reliance, Heifer does not use its limited resources to track gift animals from donation to distribution. We use your gifts where they can do the most good by pooling them with the gifts of others to help transform entire communities. And, because you are helping Heifer fight hunger and poverty, your gift is tax deductible.

So, truth be told, there's no specific animal that is "my" llama; they may not even be able to document that their mission for the coming year really was incremented by one llama as a result of my donation. But it's a polite fiction.

And what WWTBAM fan could resist giving a llama?

Save the Children wrote:

MarleysGh0st wrote:

PlacentiaSoccerMom wrote:Will they send you letters and pictures from your llama?

No, they say they keep their expenses down by aggregating donations together, so I won't get pictures of "my" llama or reports about which family it goes to. And, alas, that means I won't be able to suggest naming it "Meredith" or anything for an audition hook.

We were supposed to name it? I thought we were supposed to cook it! My bad........


*burp* Scuse me.......

Stupid llamas. I'd never allow myself to be donated to anything. All those charities are run by crooks and fat-ass spokesmen....

silvercamaro wrote:Marley, as long as you got the more formal "thank you" in the mail, you should look upon the call simply as an added "We appreciate you very much."

Since it was on your machine, are you sure it was a robo call? Maybe it was a personal call, but the guy read something because he didn't really need you to call him back.

It was pretty clearly a recorded message, with a long, silent delay after my answering machine started recording, typical of a robocall.

I'm not trying to criticize Heifer International or the woman who called me (I didn't catch her name, but their annual report says she's Jo Luck). And I certainly don't expect the president of a charity that had $120 million in contributions in the last fiscal year to personally call every small contributor. It's just that, as I said, I've never gotten a robocall like that before. Given the inherent distaste that many people (myself included) have for the medium, I wanted to raise the discussion of whether using that medium would be an effective way to increase their good will (and, ultimately, donations).

But, you know, this isn't a big issue I'm raising here. Just Bored conversation.