Try working in a service/retail industry and see how many of these requests for "donations" you get. It is a royal pain in the azz! The more you do, the more you requests you get. And trust me, the amount of "exposure" you get doesn't even come close to the actual costs of such donations Throw religion into the mix and things get even more tricky.
That's basically what I said on the first page, most of the negative comments in this thread are from people who have never worked in a management position at any kind of consumer based business.
It's been said a few times here that a donation brings lots of exposure or setting up a booth will more than pay for the donation or fees etc. It often times doesn't even come close, nobody works for free and the businesses have to pay for the product.
And if someone heard you gave something to someone else, than everyone is looking for a handout. Next time one of those lovely telemarketers calls asking for money. Give them a few bucks and I promises you that you'll receive ten times the calls the next time around.
Even if there's a 50% mark up on a product, pay taxes, wages, utilities, insurance, maintenance, etc. There's not a whole lot left for profit.
