Raoul Pop

I care about the environment, and I subscribe to the newsletters for several environmental groups, so I’m kept informed of what’s going on. I’ve always known they border on abusing their subscribers, by promising low frequency, then writing once or twice a week, and that’s in addition to requests for money. Within the past two weeks, I’ve had the chance to see just how badly they do when it comes to respecting the very people who support them. I was out of the country, and couldn’t check my email daily. In less than two weeks, I had over twenty emails in my Inbox from places such as Environmental Defense, PIRG, Union of Concerned Scientists, and other “reputable” organizations.

They practically bombarded me with emails bordering very closely on spam – request over request for money, for “doubling” and “tripling” my support, for saving this and that, and all written with plenty of exclamation points, as if it’s the end of the world. Well, it’s not! Wise up, people, and stop pestering your supporters! Sure, I care about the environment, but I don’t care to be peppered with annoying emails. I’d like to get a little respect. If you’ve got pertinent issues to write about, send a weekly digest, highlighting the actionable issues, and mention the money at the end. One email per week, or even less, is plenty. The world won’t end if you wait a couple of days to send out an email. So listen up, all you environmental organizations – if you don’t change your email policies, you’ll end up in my Spam folder!