Joel Belz offers some good advice for those who are receiving an extra amount of charitable giving pleas in their mailboxes:
If things are really bad for the economy in general for the year ahead, one component may have it even worse. Those are the folks who manage the charitable and non-profit organizations of our society.
Your mailbox has probably already been cluttered with the panic messages. Giving is drastically down! Our needs are dramatically up! Please dig deep! Whatever you gave last time, would you please consider doubling it this time around?
I have an alternative suggestion: When you get the next request like that, trash it.