DEAR MISS MANNERS: I make regular donations to several charities, and receive regular solicitations from them in the mail, as well as from others that I have never heard of. I have decided to use my stimulus check to donate to a few different charities on a one-time-only basis, but that means that I will probably start getting solicitations from them, too.
I hate the thought that my contributions will go to pay for postage and printing, not actual work. Is there any practical way to make sure my money isn’t used for further solicitations?
GENTLE READER: Perhaps you can suggest that they start using electronic mail instead. Or as a contributor, make your donation contingent on being used only for a specific and worthy purpose. “For the library fund” would be a good example. “Meetings in Bermuda,” Miss Manners suggests, would not.