I recently gave a sizeable sum to SmileTrain, the organisation which provides free corrective surgery for children with cleft palates in third world countries. I am now regularly bombarded with pleas for more money. The latest appeal is accompanied by photographs of children with very severe cleft palates, doubtless aimed at applying some emotional “blackmail” to me, even though I am more than well aware of the nature of the deformities which led me to give funds in the first instance. The repetitive nature of these appeals, along with the photographs, are doing the charity a disservice, insofar as they are starting to turn me off the idea of making further donations.

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