Question:
Unfortunately I have to collect for myself as my only source of livelihood, and the situation has become completely untenable with many missed deadlines that have penalties and consequences, overwhelming payments, crushing debts, extensive expenses, and so on, without any hope in sight at all.
There is a local organization that provides services for collectors of all sorts, whether for institutions or private, at reasonable rates, and upon my request they set up a campaign page for me, but in order to be successful, it requires intense publicity, which is also called "crowd funding."
The best and quickest method to accomplish this, is by sending out a mass appeal to as many people as possible.
This requires lists of names and their email addresses, or messaging phone numbers, or social media addresses, and so on.
Since I don't have any lists of any kind, am I permitted to use any lists of names that might have come my way for example through an appeal that might have been sent to my email, sometimes requesting that I forward it onwards, and often these appeals have a long list of names that they were sent to, in fact, they could be many lists as a result of continuous forwarding, and it is possible to gather all of these lists and employ them for myself, but it is not possible to request permission from the original sender, or similar circumstances.
Once I received a heart rending appeal apparently for someone who had a life threatening illness, r"l, and was trying to raise funds for treatment, r"l.
So there was a very large amount of names attached to this appeal, and it requested to forward it.
There might be a way to aggregate lists from various social media sources.
Of course, large institutions such as yeshivos, kollels, and the ones that put out the phone books, and other businesses, have massive mailing lists, but they would either not be willing to sell them to me, or I couldn't afford it.
So am I permitted to use lists from an email, or try to aggregate them as mentioned from other sources, even without permission, and is there a difference between public or private sources, private meaning various institutions.
Answer:
Hello,
You are allowed to use the e-mail addresses that came together with your e-mail. This is information that the first organization provided you with, and you didn’t get it through going to places that you weren’t supposed to, therefore it is permitted.
Best wishes
