Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The "Czar of Unwanted Solicitations"

I love this article from the October 4, 2007 edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which tells the story of Bernard Olson, an 80 year old retiree in Florida who has waged a "one-man crusade against the envelopes that show up at his door seeking cash... As a form of protest, every January he tallies how many letters he has received during the previous year from charities, noting which organizations they are from and how much he would have to give if he met the minimum of each request... he has sent a summary of his findings to friends, the news media, and charity watchdogs." The article goes on to describe the most intense object of his derision - address labels. "Last year I received over 2,600 address labels, which would take over seven years to use if I used one each day."

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