Corporate Giving

Okay, let's face it - companies donate money to certain causes - in part - so they will look good. It's at least partially about the attention they can get due to their donations.

Most companies take into considerations many factors before donating to a certain cause. For instance, a pet food company may prefer to donate to helping homeless animals because their customer base is obviously animal lovers.

Now, have you heard about KFC's latest endeavor? I will say this up front - I think that donations to a good cause is ALWAYS a good thing. How you go about it and market it is a different story. KFC has agreed to donate 50 cents per bucket of chicken they sell. Guess what the cause is? Ah yes, it's Susan G. Komen. Breast cancer awareness. Here, I have some awareness for you. Don't eat KFC if you want to try to stay cancer free. Of course there are about 50 million causes of cancer, obesity is one of them (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/obesity). Also the high blood pressure and cholesterol problems will almost certainly develop into heart disease. This is like McDonald's sponsoring some fitness program. Please.

Of course, they point out that you can get their Kentucky Grilled Chicken in that bucket instead of fried. Yeah right. Who goes to KFC to get grilled chicken? Apparently their foray into grilled chicken hasn't done well. Maybe they think this will help?

A mark of a responsible giving program for a company is this: Do it separately from making direct sales, and give to a cause that makes sense for your company. (As I mentioned earlier.) At least shoot for one of the two. Off hand, I can think of some better causes for KFC to give to that would make since for their business. Could they give to Alzheimer's research? Nope, research is mounting that says a healthy diet and exercise is a prevention measure for Alzheimer's. Animal rights? That's laughable. How about the Red Cross? Well maybe. That would actually not be too much of a counter intuitive option. How about a donation to help the hungry? Well, maybe. At least it sort of makes sense seeing as how they do serve sustenance. kinda. You get the idea.

My point is this. If you want to step up and help, just donate the money upfront instead of attaching your donation amount to the number of buckets sold. That is tying it directly to your sales and encouraging customers to buy the worst kind of prepared chicken that I know of. Either that or specify that 50 cents for every bucket of grilled chicken will count. At least pretend to make an effort to promote a healthy lifestyle as a part of breast cancer awareness.

I'm not one to turn down junk food - we all know that. But I am NOT okay with a fast food company charity-washing their business & trying to make money off of people who want to help a cause and instead making them fall victim to it.

Sheesh.