EDITOR;
First of all, let me say I am not advocating stopping donating to charities.
That being said, about eight months ago I got a phone solicitation for a new charity I have never heard of, it was Barnwell Community Against Drugs. Wow sounds great!
The caller even told me how they had saved 500 kids in our community from drugs, wow again! One itsy bitsy problem — I am the mayor of Barnwell, and after doing our  census last year, I know we don't have that many kids.  
I have never ever heard of this program. Surely someone on village council would have mentioned such an awesome program in passing. The longer I talked to him the more holes seemed to develop in the so-called charity. I tried to get as much information as possible to pass to the RCMP, when I got a little too nosy he hung up.
My wife and I made a decision right there no more donations over the phone, and what a response we have gotten! Everything from surprise to actual anger, we politely say "We no longer donate over the phone but if you would like to mail us some information, we would be happy to take a look at it and decide."
You have to be ready for this come back they all will give, which is, "OK, what can I put you down for a commitment?" To which we reply "Nothing, it’s my money and I will decide where to donate it."
I am happy to report we still give regularly to charities, but the phone calls are down about 90 per cent.
We also feel more comfortable opening the credit card bill at the end of the month, knowing we haven't bought a surfboard in Bali or something goofy like that because we gave our credit card number out over the phone to someone we can't identify.
I feel if we can start to spread the word that this is what our communities are doing, we might actually get a real decrease in phone solicitations.

DEL BODNAREK
Barnwell