As I was heading to class in the 23rd building, I was targeted by a young man with a red beanie. “RED BEANIE!! You’re wearing a red beanie, I’m wearing a red beanie”, he yelled out. Then he started to captivate me by talking about this nonprofit organization that is aimed to help women and children who are not as well off on the other side of the world. This nonprofit organization was called Care. As he went on to explain how I could contribute, he had his ipad out with a form ready to be filled out. I thought I was doing a good deed so I opted for the highest amount. I donated without hesitation even though he said it was a monthly contribution.

When I got home, I did some research on this organization and looked up how to cancel this monthly contribution/PAD (pre-authorized debit). You can get more information about PAD here.

If you would like to donate to this cause, you can visit:
http://www.care.org/donate
The other plus side is that you will get an income tax receipt for the sum of your contributions so you could use that when you file taxes!

There is a huge connection to this course mainly because of technology and information. When asking for donations, the marketer would have a page that’s already set up for you to fill out your personal information. They usually have a lot of ways to persuade you to act on what they want – forming a large group of donors all with one thing in common. Donating has been made easier and more efficient with the use of credit and debit cards instead of taking cash. It also shows the ease of completing forms online or on the computer instead of filling out everything by hand. You can easily find information online related to the things you are curious about, in this case, I searched about PAD. This can also relate to Clay Shirky’s idea of transaction costs. The difference in the costs between doing everything by hand and filling it out online is the time and materials wasted. Why use the old tradition of pen and paper when you can do everything with a click of a button?