Do you think that the gifts — or even the whole chinese auction format — encourages people to give tzedakah for all the wrong reasons? Plenty of people would never even consider owning the things that are in the catalogs until all of a sudden it becomes a possibility — even if it’s a remote possibility. I know someone once said that if tzedakahs could just send out a plain old letter soliciting funds and people would respond, it would take half the amount of contributions to raise twice the amount of money.
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