I agree - a couple of months ago I had a knock on the door at 9pm on a sunday night - it was dark and raining and I looked through the spy hole and saw it was a girl in her early 20's so I opened the door. She launched into a barely audible monologue and I realised she was after money for charity. It made me really cross! I don't want to have to explain why I don't want to give my personal details to someone on my door step when I was actually having a nice evening inside! I'm with you brad!

A good idea in many cases. Distance fundraising (in which I'd include direct mail, online fundraising, inserts, press/radio adverts and the like) is only ever going to reach and appeal to some sections of the public.

Friends do call before coming over, but 'charity guy' is as much your friend as the political party canvassers, the local free newspaper circulation checkers, the gas man, the woman collecting the Betterware catalogue I didn't ask for, the milkman trying to cross-sell me some bread or a calendar etc. I suppose ideally I'd prefer them all to give my door a miss, but I can live with these encounters.

Charity guy's timing could have been better - bedtime for children, post dinner digestion, calling after dark - but otherwise I'd say that I do expect charities to try this and other truly personal methods of fundraising.

Equally I'd expect this approach to irritate some people, just like all other methods of fundraising irritate some people.

I got doorstepped a couple of years ago by a chap recruiting for the local (Bucks) Wildlife Trust. He was an old bloke and really good! not pushy at all, knowledgeable and was obviously involved in the trust's work, not an agency guy. I signed up and proudly display the sticker. Does anyone else have experience of using older face to face people, (or volunteers) rather than the young agency pups we all know and avoid?

I'm all for it. Door to door fundraising that is. It's an inconvenience, I know, but nothing compared to the issues these door-to-door fundraisers are tackling: child abuse, animal cruelty, climate change, poverty and so on.

These people are directly responsible for raising many many millions of pounds for charity. Life would be worse without them.

I'd hate to have their job. Can I suggest that a cool strategy is to thank them for doing their important work but tell them it's not a convenient time or not a cause you'd like to support.

Each of you make good points and I'm feeling less cranky about it.

Howard - I appreciate the bigger DM picture. I was seriously under the impression that the modern world was phasing out doorbell ringing, ie. moving gas & electric meters outside, milkpeople leaving a menu, etc. The less there is, the less I want to tolerate. I don't even feel obliged to answer the door. So I was surprised by a charity visit. It's never happened before. I don't like saying no. I didn't have my emotional armour on.

Steve - I wouldn't want their job either. I was relatively polite. He was quickly frustrated and annoyed because his job was thankless and people are rude. I was probably the 50th person to tell him to go away. Then I was a bit rude. Then Anna complained about the draft. It ended with everyone annoyed.

But you've got me thinking: the charity was actually a good fit. And if it were my favourite charity, I would have been over the moon to have them at my door! I'd have had them in for dinner and drinks. But we have a thing.

Actually, my favourite charity just wrote to me to ask me if I would volunteer to translate, feed back on upcoming campaign designs, shoot and edit videos, proof-read, do research or just spread the word through blogs and social networking sites. It was like a menu. I could choose which bits I wanted to do. I'm really impressed. I said I would. I want them to come to dinner. But we have a thing.

Oddly enough I’ve had two lots round in the past two weeks, most unusual.

Some lovely local ladies stopped by Saturday morning to tell me about their local church. I’d only just woken and had a terrible hangover, they apologised for catching me at an inconvenient time and politely made their goodbyes after leaving behind a leaflet...

anyway...

I think we have to be able to talk to strangers in order to maintain any kind of community. And the ones that have come to the door have been really quite nice. And not at all like the charity equivalent of a Capital One’s payment protection insurance salesman who occasionally bars the way between me and a disappointing lunchtime sandwich from Somerfield.

For me, it’s not the knocking on the door, it’s the professionalised ‘don’t take ‘no’ for an answer’ approach which is really unwelcome.