Just realized that company that promised to donate meals to hospitals actually only donated 47 meals total last year

I was looking through charity watchdog sites because my niece asked about a brand's 'buy one give one' program she saw on TikTok. Turns out the fine print said they only counted meals after a certain threshold was met. They never hit that threshold. 47 meals. For a company that sold like 50,000 units. Has anyone else looked into those feel good campaigns and found the numbers don't add up?

3 comments

3 Comments

perry.evan29d agoMost Upvoted

Best thing you can do is look for the actual impact numbers on the Form 990 or charity site before buying anything. If they make it hard to find, that's usually a red flag.

the_joel29d ago

I checked into a water bottle company that said they'd plant a tree for every bottle sold... turns out they donated to a group that planted like 200 trees total for the whole year, and that group admitted most of them died anyway. It's frustrating because my friend bought 10 of those bottles thinking she was helping the planet. Makes you wonder how many of these campaigns are just for marketing.

masonm7028d ago

Gotta correct one little thing there. Those companies aren't "donating" to tree planting groups - they're buying carbon offsets or paying a third party to do the planting. The paperwork usually says something like "partnership" or "offset program," not a donation. It's a marketing expense for them, plain and simple. Your friend bought a bottle, and the company wrote off that cost as advertising while pretending it was charity. The trees dying part is honestly the bigger issue though. Most of these mass planting campaigns fail because they plant in the wrong places or don't maintain them. They'd be better off just giving the money directly to a local conservation group that actually keeps the trees alive. But that doesn't look as good on a label.