My twitter friend, Joey Leslie, and I traded some back and forth tweets about Chase Bank and Pepsi's Crowdsourcing for Social Good efforts. Joey (I think) coined a new term, "cause washing." His definition:
"Hiding a brand behind a cause for corporate benefit."
Joey pointed out that Facebook's donation to Donors Choose in lieu of holiday party and Google's $20 million donation to selected charities in lieu of holiday gifts to Adsense and Adwords products is not cause washing.
As a board member of Ushahidi and an advisor to Global Voices - very pleased to see them on the list of recipients which also included those listed below. (Since Google didn't include a link on the page, I've included a list with links below) I'm curious how they came up with the list - a small committee within Google or did they crowdsource names internally?
Feeding America
Boys and Girls Clubs
Smile Train
CARE, Mothers Matter
World Wildlife Fund, Natural Capital Project
Mobile Creches
Prajwala
HEAL Africa
African Institute for Mathematical Sciences
The Mango Tree
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Harlem Children's Zone
Save the Children, Latin America focus
Reporters Without Borders
Witness
Loud Against Nazis
Global Voices
Ushahidi
Save the Children, Middle East and Eurasia focus
Grupo Cultural Afro Reaggae
Ashesi University College, Ghana
Pratham
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience
Shin Shin Educational Foundation
Tzu Chi Foundation
Facebook had their holiday party on December 11 at the San Francisco Design Center. Photos: http://photos.markbach.com/v/events/holidayparty2009/
And corporate gifts are tax-deductible, no? PR + tax deductible charity = reasons that corporate giving programs exist.
Posted by: archertc | December 25, 2009 at 02:13 AM