How to decline quotation requests from charities

Cruzini

Member
I have an issue, simple one really.
Some local charities ask for print quotes, design quotes etc but never follow through. Never have and never will because they use larger firms further afield (most do because 'they get charity rates')
How can we discourage 'these charities' from requesting quotations without being rude or ignoring them and being perceived as inefficient.

We simply don't tender for work. We are not the cheapest locally (at least I hope not). Charities are generally obligated to use lowest quote. So we don't really have much chance of getting work.
That said we have now carried out work for one group because we didn't quote or tender, simply replied explaining quality was foremost and this did not come with budget low cost price tag. We were given the chance and are still doing work 3 years on.
 
Hmmm?

Charities are run more like businesses these days, at least the big ones are and I keep reading things questioning the work they actually do and how they are run.
I'm not talking about the smaller ones that are run by volunteers. More the bigger ones with a full staff force and directors and such.
The people asking for the discount don't work for nothing and neither do the directors with their HUGE salaries.
When you're talking about a job that say is £1000 and you give then a 20% discount then that's like shoving two hundred notes in a random chuggers pot just for asking.
 
As a solution you could ask the caller:

"Are you working as an employee or a volunteer"?

If they answer "An employee" just say "Do you give a percentage of your earnings back to your employers"?

If they answer "No" then just answer "Neither do I".
 
Yeah I'm another one who isn't keen on charities due to the way some are run.... not to mention I keep hearing about how some still have loads still in the bank from a few years back (and increasing yearly) and I just think why do you keep wanting more when you can't even spend what you've got already.... Then there's the 'dodgy' ones too.

Honestly though with quotes you put your price in and they say yay or nay, it's part of the business we live in :)
 
I'm not anti charity or anything.

I just question the running of some of the larger ones like Levi.
A few years ago, the ladies from the company I worked at did that 5k run (in pink) and raised a fair few quid for a cancer charity.

The year after they all got bombarded with calls to their mobiles (during work time) from the charity trying to get them to do it again and asking them to make donations right there and then.
"Could you just spare £10 right now"?
"How about £5 then"?

It got so bad they had to be quite sharp with the call centre staff and tell them to stop calling as it would get them in trouble at work.
The ladies got so pissed with it they never did do the run that year.

Some of these charities are just businesses that use extremely aggressive sales tactics similar to the PPI people.
 
It's not just charities or ppi etc that are getting out of hand.

Yesterday or the day before I had an automatic phone call which started 'do you hate nuisance calls, us too' and I was like yep why are you ringing me then and you literally have to wait until the end
(this was just for some silly phone to 'block' nuisance callers)
and press 9 to stop further calls. Obviously this doesn't work until the end of the call so you get to enjoy the pointless spam. I found that out on the 'free boiler in your area' calls that don't seem to stop even though I'm not eligible for them due to no gas and have asked numerous times not to be called.
You'd think they'd actually do some research first before calling, same goes for the solar panel calls which are already installed.

But I found out something even worse yesterday when I went to register a product for the free 'extended' warranty and if I'd have signed up to it I was basically giving this company (russell hobbs) the rights to give my info to advertising/spam companies and the only way you could opt out was to write to them.... seriously that is just WRONG. Luckily it was only a kettle so said screw it I'll just buy a new one if it breaks... and it won't be a russell hobbs one either.
 
Essentially it sounds like you want to be out of the running ASAP, and they are ultimately looking for the cheapest price.

I'd maybe put together a rate card PDF that you can email over when they request a quote (providing they are all asking for similar stuff – flyers, banners, leaflets, etc etc). Explain that you don't tender, but offer these prices for charities or non-profits (I probably wouldn't even shave anything off the price).

If they accept your price at face value, then great, if not, then you're out of the bidding war and are free to go about your business.
 
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