Blog: Now I’m going to make myself really unpopular here  as if that was something new but this is something I’ve wanted say for some time and I really believe it needs saying.

We’ve all got used to being bombarded by charity requests by now, whether envelopes through the letterbox, rattling tins on the high street, or harrowing adverts on the TV. But lately it seems charity fundraisers have found a way of infiltrating even our own four walls with guilt-inducing phone calls at all hours of the day and night, requesting donations.

I’m happy to give the small amount of money I can afford to a charity I believe is worth supporting. Like most folk out there I believe in counting my lucky stars, as regularly as possible.

But this new style of cold-call charity request smacks of big business to me.

I have a friend in Shrewsbury, a young mum, who spends more time than she can afford to lose each day, trying to get charity callers off the line. It’s not that she doesn’t care, but she’s already busy enough caring for her son and seven-month bump, and she and her partner certainly have little money to spare.

Upset recently, she told me of a cold-call she’d answered from a cancer charity in which, after asking if she had children, the phone operative had gone into the dangers of childhood cancers in great and horrifying detail.

And here’s where I make myself really unpopular . . . so far these telemarketing campaigns seem to be mostly operated by cancer charities. Now of course it’s only right there are so many charities dealing with cancer, it affects one in three of us and we all know someone, or are someone, affected by some form of the disease, so thank goodness for them.

But there are many other charities out there too, doing some great, if under-funded work, which are less high profile but helping people with equally dreadful afflictions. And they’re not spending millions on tele-marketing campaigns.

Cancer is now everyone’s biggest fear and I wonder in my private moments if the same PR machines responsible for the cold-call donation requests, are not partly responsible too for keeping cancer so high in the public’s mind in the first place. And then I wonder how much money all that slick marketing costs.

So next time you’re thinking about running a race, stuffing a plastic sack with unwanted bric-a-brac or shaving off your beard off to raise funds for something, perhaps you should pause to consider some of the less obvious charities, struggling to find the cash to continue with the excellent work they do, and spending every penny they get on improving the lives of those affected by less memorable diseases.

By Emma Suddaby