Business idea
Here’s a business idea for you enterprising types. Someone needs to create a business that does donation anonymization. In particular, I want to be able to donate to various causes without them having any idea what my mailing address, phone number, etc are. I don’t ever want them to spend my money asking me for more money. You could just take 1% off the top in exchange for providing this valuable service to the public, and then arrange with the various charities to never mail you, because after all your purpose in life is to provide anonymization. Long term it might not be that viable because as charities realize that people don’t want to be begged for more money, especially in paper mail while knowing what it cost to send those paper mailings.
I would suggest limiting the size of financial transactions through such a system to $2500 or so, to avoid a whole host of problems, including the one Centauri mentions in his comment below.
August 30th, 2016 at 5:43 am
Yes! This is a great idea. I hate to see the money I’ve sent an organization wasted in sending me requests many times a year, if not in a month. Even when it is emails, it gets to be a problem as the organization often seems to think I want to hear from them daily since it is not wasting paper, etc. A few organizations have realized this is a problem and allow you to state how many times and/or when you would like to hear from them. I refuse to donate to those who spend money sending me items I did not order: calendars, notepads, labels, etc. This wastes money and is environmentally unfriendly.
November 16th, 2016 at 7:35 pm
Devil’s advocate: If not specifically prohibited by law, this could easily lead to anonymous SuperPACs and the end of campaign finance transparency.