non-related comment.
Recently the Orchard area has been packed with "volunteers" who aggressively try to make you donate money. The tactics they use include, but are not limited to, pulling your clothes, barring your way and shouting in your face. This is a true account btw, it happened to me and another friend during December.
The first incident was somewhere around 10th Dec, me and my friends were walking outside Heeren, and this girl approached us and asked for donations. Obviously the first thing she said was "Hi, I'm not trying to sell you anything etc etc etc" When my friend explicitly stated that he was not interested in donating money, she began pulling at his shirt and demanding donations. At one point she even shouted "I JUST CAME OUT FROM PRISON, GIVE ME 2 DOLLARS CAN OR NOT!?!?!" After like 5 minutes we managed to shake her off, but it was a pretty traumatising experience.
The second time this occurred, it happened to me, just outside Cathay Cineleisure, this girl, who I observed was amongst a group of friends doing the same thing, asked me to donate, starting with the same introduction as stated earlier. Similarly I said I wasn't interested and I was in a hurry (which I was, since I was supposed to meet my friends and I was late), she stood directly in my path waving her clipboard in my face, and pulled my shirt refusing to let me go until I donated money. This time I lost my temper and told her that if she continued I'd sue for harrassment, which thankfully scared her enough to stop.
My conclusion? No volunteers are fanatical enough to ask for donations in this manner, the only reasonable explanation I could come up with is that these people are hired to collect donations and they're paid a commission based on how much they manage to collect. Which isn't exactly flattering to charities after the recent NKF saga.