Looking for a reason to brush past the human spam? Here you go:

...the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and others hired Boston-based Grassroots Campaigns Inc. to go door to door and ask people on the street for money. The strategy is known as canvassing historically has a low success rate, but no doubt you have been asked at some point this holiday season “Hey, got a minutes for ______?” In 2009, Grassroots raised more than $934,000 but returned only $67,00 to clients, or about 8 percent.

You wanna give money to someone on the street? Give it to a bum—at least the money you give bums goes right back into the local economy. Via Putative.