DEAR DR. GOTT: Would you explain why there are so many places to give money for cancer? We receive at least one request a week and sometimes as many as three or four seeking donations. Why don't they combine their programmes?

We sometimes give to memorials but cannot give weekly or even monthly. Are they all equally deserving of our donations?

DEAR READER: I can understand your frustration when you receive countless requests from people seeking donations on behalf of a variety of organisations. Your mailbox is likely full of such material, and the phone solicitations often occur when we all sit down at the dinner table following a long day at work.

The roots of the American Cancer Society (ACS) go back almost 100 years. It began through the American Gynecological Society, which met in Washington, D.C., in 1912 to discuss how cancer control could be achieved through a campaign to educate the general public. That education, then and now, does not come without a price. Research is critical if we are to learn new ways to fight the battle that affects people from every walk of life and age bracket.

The ACS is a non-profit organisation with the sole mission to eliminate cancer. A large part of that organisation's structure today is its highly professional administrative and fundraising staff that, in an attempt to keep research ongoing and you informed of such advances in medicine, may inadvertently double or triple its mailings and phone requests.

The ACS does not have the exclusive right to solicit funds. I don't know of many organisations — for-profit or not-for-profit — that do not have periodic solicitations. Take UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, created by the U.N. General Assembly in 1946. Its purpose originally was to provide health care and food to children in countries devastated by World War II. UNICEF relies on contributions from our government (and others countries) as well as from private citizens to continue its work. So whether we're talking about diabetes, mental health, cancer, heart trouble or countless other disorders, it appears money is always being sought.

The $64,000 question is how to reduce the needless paper consumption and the number of solicitations. I guess the answer is for us to put everything in perspective. Keep it simple, donate what we can to those organisations we choose to support, and recycle all that unwanted paper. Then sit back and enjoy that dinner that is getting cold because the person on the other end of the phone won't take no for an answer.

When you make a donation, do so directly to the organisation that will profit from the funds received. Countless businesses and people are hired to solicit funds. That is their job. The sad downside is that the organisation to which you donate your hard-earned money may receive only 20 percent or 30 percent of every dollar collected. Don't be seduced by the free coffee mug, baseball cap, concert tickets, book bag or other goodies you can receive if you up your donation. Forfeit the clutter, and, if you donate, make those dollars count. Research is critical, but you work all too hard for the money you have, especially in today's economy, when food prices, gas prices and the cost of living don't stop rising and our paychecks seem to shrink.

To find out what percentage of the donations actually go to services, readers can visit www.guidestar.org, an organisation that publishes information about non-profit groups.