Here’s a couple of bad ideas.
Bad idea 1: Have friendly, perky charity collecters at a railway station having a massive appeal for a good cause. Have them tell people that to donate, they have to hand over bank account details (and a name and address). Have them refuse all one off donations. Definitely don’t accept any cash.
Bad idea 2: Have a computer ring people up, and play them a message telling them a telemarketer will be with them shortly.
OK, so I bet the reason for 1 is that it makes more money for the charity. If you let someone drop $2 in the box, then they feel all good about themselves and won’t give again for a year.
In fact, since I’m someone who has two charities taking money from their account at the middle of each month, and if I could be bothered I’d stop both of them, I’m sure it makes them money. But it is very very annoying, and since I now have two leeches, there’s no way I’m signing up for anything else. Maybe I’d drop a gold coin or a bill in a bucket for Appeal of the Month, but I’m not handing over bank account details.
It seems like a bad move to me. Maybe if you were the first charity on the block to do direct debit, it was working. Now all the other charities are poisoning the minds of the populace too. Lose-lose.
2 just seems really really really dumb. I can’t see how it works.
But friends in telemarketing have told me though that people will do anything rather than say "sorry, not interested." They’ll say they’re busy, or to call back later or they’ll fake illness or anything else. (Hint: this is a bad idea. Telemarketers will have to call back if you say something that makes it sound like you’d be open to a second call. Neither they nor you want to waste time on the phone if you aren’t buying or taking their survey or whatever. Do everyone a favour and tell them no, and not to call again.)
I guess there are people out there who are too polite to hang up on machines.