Dave Thomas on Paying Back
Dave Thomas has a fine idea for improving conferences by adding a focus on charitable giving:
Just imagine the difference we could make if, as an industry, we turned each of these conferences into a chance to raise much needed money for worthy charities. Imagine if, rather than getting yet one more burlap bag with a sponsor’s name on it, you instead got a slip of paper saying that the price of that bag was being used to buy vaccine for 5 kids, or a book for a literacy project. Imagine what could happen if a conference with 5,000 attendees raised just $20 per attendee. Then imagine $50, or $100. It starts to get serious.
As somebody who falls squarely in to the “I’m not going to use your Complete Enterprise Solution even if you give me a tote bag and a glow-in-the-dark yo-yo” camp, I think this is a great idea. Nobody needs another Sun-branded pen or Google Frisbee; there are lots of people out there who could make good use of a nerd’s pocket change.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Well of course it is easy to talk about charity when you are swimming in cash from your billion dollar fast food industry. And dead.
Seriously, though. I’m kinda conflicted about this. They did this at the Oscars this year too- replacing the notorious gift-bags from the event with a certificate for carbon credits.
Perhaps my problem is that for me, being given “charity tokens” was something that you got as a kid- for instance, my uncle adopted a humpback whale for me. The idea was that as a kid charity was being given in your name with the hope that you learn to give when you grow up. Now we are all growed up, and being told that someone has contributed to a charity in my name strikes me as lame. I give quite a bit to charity already, which makes me feel good.
On the other hand, it is good marketing for a corporation. While I think it is pretty cheesy, you cannot get much cheesier than an authentic Oracle Foam Stress Releiver. At least this cheese does some general good. So yeah, what the Wendy’s guy said.
May 26th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I think you’re over-thinking things. If you had to choose between a cheesy bag full of schlock and the equivalent amount of money going to a food bank, which way would you go? Seems like an easy call to me.
May 30th, 2007 at 8:36 am
I just filled out a survey for a magazine I subscribe to regarding advertisers and charities. Basically asking if an advertisement showed you that a certain company gave to a charity would you be more likely to buy their product. If so, why? Would you be willing to pay more for a product if that company gave to charity? What if it wasn’t a nonprofit you support? Interesting to think about.
I guess I might get put off if someone who didn’t know me assumed I would support a certain charity. Although I know there are some places I shop because I agree with their good works. Currently I work for a “company†I think does good work.
Perhaps you solve this problem by giving your customer a choice. The best gift I ever received from Mercer was a Charity Check. The donation was from my company but I could choose where it went. http://www.charitychecks.us/
May 31st, 2007 at 8:03 am
I guess it all depends on whether you like what the charity does or not. I would say food banks are pretty much liked all around though. I don’t see conferences donating to something obviously controversial like Planned parenthood, it could be tied in to the org’s message such as a donation to freegeek or something.
I don’t understand how charity could be seen as “cheesy” or “lame”. I do this all the time for relatives or friends who have made it clear that they have everything they want and would be happy with a donation to doctors without borders rather than a Christmas fruit basket. It’s all about taking wasted money and doing something productive.
June 4th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Yeah, so I guess Nlo hit it on the head. It does have to do with some of the choice. But I don’t think you can necessarily apply the same logic of personal gifts between friends to organizations.
If I were given indulgences (er, Carbon Offsets) instead of a foam doo-dad, I would still consider it cheesy crap- and more-so, I would consider it pandering. But that has more to do with my personal beliefs than anything else.
Ultimately (as I noted in my previous post) I agree that more charity in general is a good thing. My main conflict comes from trying to attach moral strings to what amounts to business transactions. While I agree that business transactions should be performed ethically, it is the very personal nature of moral values themselves that makes them tricky to apply to large organizations and industries.
I’m coming to the conclusion that this can (and so probably will) become a whole blog post. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this comes down to the moral good a person attributes to a robust economy, versus other actions including charitable giving.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
This is where free market and corporate governance principles come into play. Business transactions always have the element of choice. If you don’t like the charity that the conference you want to pay to attend is donating to, then vote with your dollars–don’t go. If you don’t like the charity that a fraction of the purchase price for your favorite product is going to, then shop from the competitor. Similarly, if enough shareholders don’t like their corporation’s charitable giving policies (or in the reverse, want to institute them) you can be certain this will be reflected in the annual meeting and votes for the board of directors. The market sends very clear messages. Of course the counterargument is if you hold a minority position it is difficult to amass purchase power blocs/ shares in order to have an economic impact. In the corporate world there are some systems to counteract this effect, such as cumulative voting. In the free market you have to rely on the power of competition (see Paul’s post re: starting a “conservative” grocery store to combat the juggernaut that is Whole Foods).
You can see this reflected in the changes in business associations law in the past century in many states. Corporations were once bound to only take actions that either increased profits (from the transaction or during that fiscal year) or in no way endangered the value of investor’s holdings, no matter how slightly. Now charitable giving provisions allow corporations to engage in philanthropy (but don’t force them–remember the choice principle) even if the actions on their face do not increase shareholder value or might appear to be unprofitable at first blush. Why would corporations want to do that? Don’t they care about profits? Are they sacrificing the robustness of the American economy in favor of income redistribution? I highly doubt it.