By John Lawrence

Do you find it annoying to be hit up for a donation every time you make a purchase? You’re out buying groceries or cat food or mouthwash and you get asked to make a donation to some charity. “Would you like to contribute a dollar to help homeless dogs?”, the check out person asks. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you reduce my total by $1.00 and contribute that to charity? Do you think Walgreen’s or Petco could afford that? Give me a dollar off my freakin’ bill. I just scraped enough money together to make sure our cat is adequately fed and doesn’t go homeless.

I really think I am capable of making my own decisions about what charities I want to donate to. I don’t want to be prompted every time I buy something. And is Walgreen’s CEO who made over $13 million in 2013 contributing anything in this campaign? Heck no, and neither are the Board of Directors who make tons of money in stock grants for attending a few meetings per year.

“If there’s a bunch of people in line behind me and the cashier asks me to make a donation, it makes me feel so trapped and judged, especially if it’s for the troops,” said Jennie Blackburn, who frequently gets solicited at Walgreens and Publix. “It’s a lot of pressure.”

Joe Loveland says “It feels like the glaring checkout person is judging while customers are craning their necks to see what kind of sociopath would deny hope to the homeless puppies, cancer battlers or wounded warriors.” What the other customers don’t know is that the person not contributing at the check out line might prefer to contribute to another charity and would prefer his or her dollars to go there.

Let’s have matching contributions from the  CEO and Board of Directors and then I might feel better about contributing something. But they take nothing out of corporate profits to contribute to charity. “CVS and Walgreens, which owns the Duane Reade drug stores in metropolitan New York, said that they pick up the administrative costs of the campaign and send every dollar donated to the charity. The companies said they don’t typically match consumers’ contributions …”

Are they just dunning their customers while they use their customers’ charitable contributions as a tax write off? Do I really have to get badgered every time I go to Walgreen’s? Where’s the “no hassle” check out line? Target has a sign outside that says “No Soliciting.” It’s supposed to guarantee a “hassle free shopping experience”. Well then, why do they hassle you inside the store?

According to CBS San Francisco, Donating At The Checkout Counter, Where Does The Money Go?:

Whole Foods Market and Petco are among the many companies that collect donations at the checkout counter. At Petco, donations all go through the Petco Foundation,which keeps less than 10 percent for administrative overhead. The rest helps thousands of local animal groups like Gimme Shelter, which rescues abandoned cats.

“We have great success with our customers. They are open hearted, they want to give, they want to help animals in the community,” said Lori Morton Feazell, Petco’s Director of Animal Care and Education.

Is Petco or Walgreen’s Matching Their Customers’ Contributions?

So Petco is taking 10% of customers’ charitable donations to pay some administrator? They can’t even contribute that? Are they giving anything out of their considerable profits or is it just their customers they’re trying to shame into giving?

And whether the customer is rich or poor, they all get hit up the same. I’m for charitable giving for those well enough off to do it, but I don’t think poor people who need the money for their basic expenses should be donating to charity. Petco doesn’t care. They’re equal opportunity dunners.

I’ll state it emphatically. Poor people and those with less than six months expenses in savings should not contribute to charity. Charity begins at home. Do you have enough in savings to support yourself in retirement? Then you have no business contributing to charity. Contribute to your own retirement account or savings account instead or you may end up being a charity case yourself.

Are your kids’ financial futures secure? If not, you might end up being their charitable contributor of last resort. Philanthropy ^i.e. charitable contributing is something that the rich should feel obligated to participate in, but dunning the poor and lower middle class at Petco and Walgreen’s is a cynical exercise to make the corporations look good at the expense of people who should not for the most part be contributing to charity.

Rich people should be doing their own research to see what charities are worthy of contributions, but often they are only interested in legacy contributions ^i.e. something that they can get their name on for posterity. If the charity is keeping more than 20% of contributions for administration, advertising or fundraising, you are participating in a scam by contributing to them .

For instance, Paralyzed Veterans of America spends almost 70% of contributions on administrative and fundraising expenses. They spend only 32.5% of donations to actually help paralyzed veterans. You be the judge.

The comedian, Lenny Bruce, went door to door wearing a cleric’s collar asking for donations to some charity that he made up. Most of the money went right in Lenny’s pocket, but he did keep his nose clean with the IRS by writing a small check to the purported victims he was supposedly trying to help. Check out a charity with a website such as Charity Watch which rates charities A to F before donating.

What About CEOs Who Make Millions Without Matching Customer Contributions?

San Diego based Petco’s CEO is James M. Myers. He’s donated money to his alma mater, John Carroll University, but to homeless pets? I don’t think so. The website ceopaycut.org contacted CEOs including Mr. Myers asking them to pledge to take a pay cut in order to spread the wealth. “Jim” Myers was one of the CEOs contacted. His email is jim.myers@petco.com. So far it’s been 3 years and there has been no response from Mr. Jim Myers.

But he’s just typical of most. None of the others contacted has responded either. Mr. Myers is also on the Board of Directors of Jack in the Box Corporation from which he has received a bunch of generous stock grants. But youth wants to know: has “Jim” matched his customers’ contributions to help homeless pets? I doubt it. If he had, we’d hear about it.

Petco’s Jim Myers, while manipulating customers into donating for homeless pets, has also been responsible for sickening pets that do have a home. In January 2015 Petco pulled Chinese made cat and dog treats off their shelves after reports that they had sickened their customers’ pets.  They also have stopped selling a boozy treat meant to calm dogs as of January. They have taken the Good Dog Pet Calming Supplement off their shelves after some protested over the alcohol content of the product. The product contains an astonishing 13 percent alcohol.

According to Daily Mail.com:

The ASPCA has previously warned against the ingestion of alcohol by animals, saying even the smallest amount can be fatal.

This comes just two weeks after the San Diego-based company removed all Chinese-made dog and cat treats from its website and stores over fears they were linked to 1,000 dog deaths since 2007 – and an unknown number of animal illnesses.

The illnesses and deaths were linked to a number of treats, including chicken, duck or sweet potato jerky. 

‘We know some pet parents are wary of dog and cat treats made in China, especially Chicken Jerky products, and we’ve heard their concern,’ said Petco CEO Jim Myers in a statement last May.

As of 2009, Jim was making over $800,000 in salary and bonus not including stock options. His nonvested stock options were valued at $734,550. This doesn’t count all the stock granted due to his position on the Board of Jack in the Box.

But how much has Jim given for the sake of homeless pets? For all I know he may be using his customers’ charitable contributions as a tax write off for Petco. There is no stated policy in this regard. I would feel better if customers’ donations were matched by those of CEOs and owners.

Walgreen’s at least, unlike Petco, donates 100% of customer donations to charity. They absorb the administrative costs themselves. Many companies match their employees’ gifts to charity. Not Walgreen’s. Let alone customer donations. No way they’re matching them. They have no problem dunning employees and customers, but mum is the word regarding corporate profits.

Gregory D. Wasson President and Chief Executive of Walgreen’s until 2014 made $13,632,741 for fiscal year 2013. He is also a Director of Verizon. How much did he donate to match his customers’ charitable donations? After his departure Stefano Pessina took over as CEO. Walgreen’s has other fish to fry than worrying about matching their customers’ charitable donations.

Recently they were considering moving their corporate headquarters to Switzerland to avoid paying US taxes. Barry Rosenstein, founder and managing partner of New York-based hedge fund Jana Partners pushed for Walgreen’s to move its headquarters to Europe to slash its tax bill, an idea that Walgreen’s backed away from in August following a firestorm of public controversy and congressional backlash.

Walgreen’s, in addition to bilking its customers out of charitable contributions, also lets its employees contribute to charity while not making any matching charitable contributions itself:

The Charity Choice program allows Walgreens employees to donate to four organizations aimed at improving health and wellness — Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and United Way. Each pay period, employees elect the amount they choose to donate.

These corporations are all for their customers and employees contributing to charity while neglecting to do so themselves. I for one will contribute to the charity of my choice myself without using some noncontributing corporation as a middleman. I don’t need any prompting from some commercial profit making enterprise, thank you.

If you do want to donate at the check out line, make sure that your sales receipt shows the amount. That’s the only way you will be able to use it as a deduction at tax time. The least they could do after tracking each transaction with their “points” program is to provide you with a year end print out of all the charitable donations you’ve made. But I guess that is asking too much. It might knock a few dollars off of corporate profits for them to do that.

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John Lawrence

John Lawrence graduated from Georgia Tech, Stanford and University of California at San Diego. While at UCSD, he was one of the original writer/workers on the San Diego Free Press in the late 1960s. He founded the San Diego Jazz Society in 1984 which had grants from the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture and presented both local and nationally known jazz artists. John received a Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego chapter, 2014 award. His website is Social Choice and Beyond which exemplifies his interest in Economic Democracy. His book is East West Synthesis. He also blogs at Will Blog For Food. He can be reached at j.c.lawrence@cox.net.

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