Black Friday, Cyber Monday and many versions for charitable spending dot the commercial landscape right after Thanksgiving. Notice that there wasn’t much charitable solicitation before Thanksgiving, when pockets and hearts were full at the same time. Many dozens of appeals filled up my inbox today. By early afternoon I was just deleting. At least I didn’t have to get paper cuts and lug the contents to the recycle bin. But it’s too bad, because had I received the requests over a longer time frame there would have been the opportunity to at least consider a couple of the ones I know best, and sometimes support. But with the glut of information and the arguments for precedence, it was even kind of tiresome ‘to just say no.’

Well, that got me thinking about how others might view the same solicitations. Did they encourage you to donate to more organizations? To some you don’t know? Would you have given more if it had been before Thanksgiving or is all this on just one day too much to process?  It made me wonder — by telescoping all, I mean ALL, the charity into one day if it weren’t just a way of getting it ‘out of the way.’ I guess that may imply questionable motives, and maybe there are, or not. But the question is also —  does it work? Or just give short-shrift to a lot of important causes?  Or was it just one more day to get out of the way? If you gave, do you think you gave more or less than if the solicitations were over a few weeks? Before Thanksgiving? Separated by areas of charity? To more or fewer recipients? Is there a better way to do the worthwhile requests than following Cyber Monday?

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