EMAIL Dialogue: What do I do when the Donor says "Too Much?"

A recent client of mine, R. Hatter, sent me an email last week asking what the appropriate response would be to a key donor who had expressed irritation at the increased number of requests for contributions and the steady flow of information from that charity to his mailbox in recent months. "What can I tell him when he complains that we send him too many appeals and too much information?"

My response was this: "On the guy who says 'too much' -- I suspect the reason he's saying this is because his commitment to your charity is faltering a bit. What I would suggest is that you get him directly back in touch with 'the kids.' Let him touch and feel the urgency that these young lives contain, let him get back in touch with the urgent realities of their situation: that the reason we ask more often and ask more people ask for more money is that the costs of keeping these kids moving towards being fully participating citizens (in a society that otherwise would just dump 'em in the garbage) is getting more expensive each year. Let him see a life 'on the mend,' so to speak. Let him see that while 'God don't make no junk,' it's really generous and self-giving human beings who provide sustenance to life. Let him see that little girl's face or that little boy's smile; let him see the poem or the video or the new invention about to be born in that youngster's mind. He's out of touch. That's all.

"My further suggestion is that you don't answer his more 'obvious' objection, having to do with mailings, and asking too much. That's not where the issue is. And arguing the 'facts of the case,' the number of mailings, etc., in the terms in which he has couched the discussion, won't really get anywhere because he will just continually come back with the same answer. His question sets it up that way. The increased efforts of your staff in fundraising can only encounter objections among those who haven't seen, felt or touched the power of these young lives. Because, for any of the rest of us, there is only one answer -- ask for more money, get more money, use more money, save more kids."
What would your response have been to this question?