Hi, I haven’t been on Folksy very long and I’ve received an email from someone wanting me to donate a baby blanket from my shop for a charity event she is apparently organising (no where near where I live).
Has anyone else had similar emails?
I’m not sure whether to respond or ignore it.
Hmm…
Personally I would ignore it. There are a lot of scammers out there who are just trying to get free stuff. I have been approached on Twitter with a couple of requests for “donations” and the problem is you can never be sure that the “charity event” is real. Even if it was real, are your creations so easy to make that you can afford to just give them away? People often think that because craftspeople do what they do for the love of making that they don’t deserve any additional reward for their work.
Of course, if you know this person and their charity and you are sure the event is legitimate then you might like the exposure. Otherwise, it is a good idea to treat these things with caution.
Sam x
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Hi Fran
It’s always best to treat random emails with caution. There’s such a lot of scams going on at the moment.
It may well be a real charity, but it’s not the best way to go about asking for donations and can be seen by many as spam.
Karen x
3 Likes
I had several of these together with a lot of other Sellers earlier this year. Folksy frown on these as they are spammers you should report to Folksy who will delete the account as they must be registered to have contacted you. Don’t reply as they will then have your email and will be able to contact you outside of Folksy.
Gill
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Thank you all for your advice.
I’m not going to reply, I’m going to ignore it. That was my initial thought - why go to a selling site to ask a complete stranger to donate a hand made item! Otherwise I’d end up giving everything away!!
Surely, if organising a charity event, you would ask local people to donate. After all, you wouldn’t go to ebay and ask for a freebie!
If someone was organising an event locally to me, I would gladly donate, as I’d know it was genuine.
Many thanks,
Fran x
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I do quite often get messages like this but usually on FB. If a person links to their event or charity, I sometimes give it a look and then decide. Most of my items are not high value, so I do occasionally donate if it is something close to my heart. If you ignore it, they tend to leave you alone but I did have someone once that was very persistent with messages (that really unnerved me actually)
There are so many scammers out there though.
The ones that seem to be more real (but still can’t be totally sure) usually have a link to their charity and offer to show your items on that page and also link back to your shop. x
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Yes …ignore it!
I get emails all the time asking to donate my masks to charities, or for photo shoots and even fashion shows in America.
I would be so out of pocket as they all seem to expect me to just post my stuff out to them with the promise of a mention here and there!!
I just don’t reply at all, I am sorry if some are genuine but with so many scammers out there I just do not take the risk!
I have donated masks to raffles at craft fairs that I have been attending which is great as I can see the tickets being sold and people collecting their prizes
Debbs 
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Thank you, I agree and will ignore it.
I hope I don’t hear from her again.
Yes persistent messages would unnerve me too!
Funny she didn’t ask for the baby shoes which are the cheapest item, but the blanket, which is priced higher!
Also no link to the charity, I didn’t think of that.
Thank you,
Fran x
Thank you, I’m going to ignore it.
I would give to local events, but like you say not worth taking the risk with these emails.
We’d end up giving everything away.
Many thanks,
Fran x
I think ignoring it is best but it can cause more offence if the request was legitimate. At the start of each year i pick a number of charities we want to work with in a very small way. Some overseas, some national, others local. We list them on our web site. Sometimes the support is a small amount of cash but mainly it would be items for raffles etc.
Then we we get an email like the one you received, we just refer them to our policy on the site and we invite them to submit something for future consideration for us to consider supporting them.
its not perfect but its fair, allows genuine ones to be in with a future chance and scammers wont waste further time
best
steve
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A bit late - but I’ve just seen this message (New to Folksy).
We are in the dogwear niche and we get at least 3-4 charity request emails every month. We are only a small family business and couldn’t afford to give to everyone but we do what we can for a good cause - for our business, that’s usually dog rescue groups/dog homes etc.
Often some people are quite cheeky and ask for a “high value donation” or try to specify what they would like.
We always check them out - most charity fundraising groups have a facebook page or website. Recently someone said she was having an event at her home for a charity but there was no evidence she was linked to it so I emailed the charity and checked.
We try to give a low value product to everyone who asks - and we include some flyers for them to put on the raffle/tombola table so that it’s not totally pointless for us.
If we’ve had too many requests, we explain that we can only give to so many causes each month and suggest they ask again for their next event (in the nicest possible way!)
Most reasonable size charities understand this - and most provide a link to our website or FB page in return for the donation which is really good for us.
Hope this helps!