Charity Consumerism

I was in the grocery store last week and at the checkout counter they were running a breast cancer research drive where they ask if you want to donate $1 to breast cancer research. The guy ahead of me said, "No, not today." which gave me a pass to say no too, precedent had been set and I was free of the compulsion that would have set in if the guy before me had said yes. It's not that I do not believe in giving, or am opposed to cancer research, but I'd feel better if there was some way I could be sure it would actually help. I always worry that the dollar I donate is not going to help anything and that it's really going to end up paying for a flyer about an upcoming "Run For A Cure"-type event that will get stuck under somebody's windshield wiper, end up as litter, then in a dump, and ultimately my dollar has been thrown away.

I think of the thousands of phony charities set up in the wake of Katrina, to take advantage of everyone's desire to give and it bugs me. The billions of dollars countries pledge to give after international disasters (recent tsunami, earthquakes, and hurricanes, etc) are rarely given in full, it's usually just for show on the international stage and since no one ever really wants to fully follow through, no one does, and all countries are willing to look the other way (except the ones who were promised the money...Pakistan, India, the Philippines), because they are doing the same thing. I am really trying to cut down on my cynical quotient, but it's difficult these days.

I don't know why, but this whole culture that seems to have popped up recently that makes people feel compelled to give, not out of genuine concern, but because it's trendy makes me uncomfortable. Who didn't have a LiveStrong bracelet two years ago? And how many people that had them actually cared about cancer research and have since given again or have volunteered to help in other cancer research drives? LiveStrong spawned several sequels for various causes and people were more than willing to drop a dollar or two to get one that matched every outfit. They could feel good about themselves, get their bracelet and apparently everybody wins. I just don't like the idea of conflating consumerism and philanthropy. The rationale is that people are going to buy, buy, buy anyway, so we might as well tie some of that to charity. It just seems disingenuous to me. The corporations rake in the money, capitalizing on people's urge to be cool, score record profits, then get to keep it all because they get tax breaks for donating just enough to charity to get the tax break and not much more. Yoplait donating 10 cents for each pink lid customers mail back to the company to breast cancer research (up to $1.5 million) sounds like a great promotion on paper. Then you do the math and realize they'd have to receive 15 million pink lids to make that contribution. And on their website they say things like "We only accept whole lids, no partial lids." What difference does it make? And they don't provide for postage, so you're going to end up losing money on this deal anyway; why not just donate the dime(s) yourself and not let Yoplait exploit you while circumventing taxation?

Here is an amusing satire on this topic from 4 years back that gets what I'm driving at.

Then again, maybe I just need to get with the times and get myself a (red) Ipod nano