WORST WAYS TO RAISE MONEY DEPT.

I got the call again today. "Hello," a pleasant female voice says, "have I reached Mr. Robinson?" The woman does not sound like a telemarketer calling from a distant land or a Southern prison. She is not one of those unctuous guys calling "on behalf of" Verizon or the local fire or police department. She sounds like she is about to read from a cue-card, but I cannot be certain, so I acknowledge that she has, indeed, reached the party she is seeking.

"Well, Mr. Robinson, you have been accused (she pauses for dramatic effect) of having a big heart!"

Click. Moments after hanging up, my hand is still quivering and my heart is beating like a hummingbird doing aerobics. I have been here before and the nightmare scene swarms me again like an agony of bees.

Flashback to the 1990s. Same phone call. Mr. Robinson, you have been accused of having a big heart! Then comes the knock on the door. A man and a woman dressed as cartoon police officers enter my office and read my Miranda rights. I am handcuffed and marched into the town square where a local nonprofit agency has set up a mock jail cell. I am forced to wear a striped prison suit and cap and locked in the cell in full view of passersby. They call it "jail and bail," and it’s all for a good cause.

After an unknown agonizing period, perhaps two minutes, possibly two days, I am released and photographed and presented to some idiot wearing a black robe and a white wig. A crowd is gathering and the sun beats down on my naked shame. I stand accused of being a nice guy who is always helping out with community causes.

"Your bail has been set at $100," the mock judge decrees and bangs his plastic gavel that squeaks like a dog’s chew toy, which in fact, it is. My bail is low. Apparently I am the most minor of local celebrities – or perhaps the judge has noticed my homicidal glare. Someone hands me a cell phone. I am instructed to call my friends until I have raised $100 in pledges toward the nonprofit agency that has kidnapped me.

It is not such a bad thing to be humiliated in the public square. I have done that on my own often enough. But it is another thing altogether to ask friends for money over the phone in the middle of the day to contribute to a cause that, at this moment, I would rather carpet bomb than support.

In this terrorist form of fundraising, the prisoner is not even allowed to plead his case. One is either humiliated into performing or branded as a poor sport. It is social capitalism gone mad.

A few weeks ago another perfectly nice nonprofit agency called and asked if they could auction me off. "What?" was my dumb reply. Seems I had been selected for sale in a "celebrity auction" where benefactors bid to have dinner with their favorite local personality. Former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen was on the block along with some UNH athlete, the mayor, and a number of media types.

"What if no one bids?" I asked. "Wouldn’t that be pretty humiliating?" Or worse, I thought, would be a pity bid. Someone throws in a few dollars just to get me off the stage. "Oh, I’m sure you will bring a nice price," she said, as if she had no clue that this is a nation founded on families enslaving other families.

"I think I’ll pass," I said.

"I’m sorry to hear that," she said. "Perhaps you would like to make a contribution instead." I didn’t.

Now I don’t even pass on these calls. I just hang up. I figure if an organization is so hard up for money that it has to resort to embarrassing people, it probably deserves to die. I’d prefer these groups just break into my house and steal the cash. Or why not hold me hostage for real? Use the thumbscrews or put me on the rack and I’d gladly pay any sum to end the torture. Better that than pretend we’re all having fun.

In my jail and bail episode, shackled to a plastic ball and chain and wearing a prison suit, I took the cowards way out. I agreed to pay my own bail. I wrote a check for $100, then skulked back to my office like a convict on a day pass. I felt lower than scum on a valley pond until I made a

Phone call of my own – to my local bank. I paid a $25 penalty to cancel the check I had just written. Best $25 I ever spent. My self esteem flooded back. Then I gave the remaining $75 to a charity that had never asked me for a nickel.

Copyright © 2007 by J Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.