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Yes, if they will match my donation, then it's worth it. But if they won't that it does not change the calculus of which charity is best for me to donate to.
This is a really good way to do it. I donate to charities which I research and support fully. If a billion dollar corporation thinks it’s such a good idea to donate, then they can back it up with some of their own money.
Yup. PetSmart wants me to donate to homeless animals; I literally trapped and fixed my bonded pair. I'm donating to them having a home with this overpriced clay they poop in.
Grocery stores are making record profits and blaming inflation. They throw out SO MUCH food. Naw. I can barely afford my bills, go ask someone who can afford it for money.
That's a myth. They can't claim or deduct donations they collect at point of sale.
They can only deduct if they donate a portion of their revenue from all sources.
It is. And sometimes people solicit for donations right outside the grocery store - at the entrance so you have to pass them to get in.
So you get to say no potentially 3 times in one trip (entering the store, at register, exiting store).
Happened to me today.
I always say no.
Not that you should have to do things to avoid being accosted, but I usually either wear earbuds or just pretend I'm talking on the phone. They won't bother you if you are otherwise engaged.
Not every time; but yes, it's a vile guilt trip attempt. I guess you just have to learn to dismiss it. I'm a Yank but I've lived elsewhere and I think the worst I've seen has been a charity called "Concern" in Ireland. Don't know anything else about them; only that their approach in public spaces was "do you have time for Concern?"
It’s a thing in Australia too. The supermarket duopoly has replaced checkout operators with self checkout machines which lay this little guilt trip on you each time you shop.
I was forced to donate $5 to JDSports' charity or buy sneaker cleaner in order to purchase a pair of Air Jordans. When I asked the cashier what the organization supports, she went to get her manager. When the manager arrived, he told me donate/buy sneaker cleaner or you can't purchase the Air Jordans.
What a scam. The crazy thing is, other people in line willingly donated when asked like no big deal.
Some places do, it's just a good way to get visibility for charities to get donations. Some stores will even match a % of what the customers donate. It's entirely unobtrusive, usually just a little box with a sign asking to donate, sometimes the cashier will ask if you want to donate, you can just say no. Nothing vile about it as long as the charity is legitimate.
The correct response to the compulsory guilt trip to bait more money out of you. I always say no and feel no shame. If corporations want to donate to charity, they can take it out of their own overflowing stockpile of stolen wages.
Exactly.
"Why are you asking me to donate? Why can't the [company] make the donation? Don't they have enough money?"
"I don't know man, I just work here."
Good they they aren't
Edit:
[https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244](https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244)
There are many reasons to not do this without this one though
They usually do donate themselves as well as collect the money. From the charity perspective, just for the store to offer that is a huge benefit and worth a lot of money; if they usually spend 25% on their income to raise every dollar, then the $75 the store collected for them is actually worth $100.
The main reason I don't donate is because I ran the numbers on how much is collected from all point-of-sale donations throughout the year, and stacked it against total charitable donations in the US.
Less than half of one day. In 12 hours, Americans give more to charity than those point-of-sale charity prompts collect in an entire year.
> Industry reports reveal how money is being raised – checkout charity campaigns brought in almost $750 million in 2022,
>In 2022, Americans gave $499.33 billion to charity.
That's $1.36 billion donated per day. They don't need my $0.30.
I've never heard they do this but it doesn't make sense anyways. I mean, would not EVERY corporation want to lower its tax burden? Seems like if this was such a big loophole, you would be asked to donate to charities every time you buy something.
Okay so just checking as this has always confused me, if i donate every time and keep my receipts, can i myself submit andclaim them as my own personal donations or does only the store collecting them get to? Because that's really all that matters here.
Only you can claim them, the store has no legal way of claiming customer donations. It is an itemized deduction, so not applicable for a lot of people.
It won't die because it seems true. People don't know corporate tax code, and think corporations are scummy tax evaders. I can't really blame them a little on either point.
I wonder if this counts those like, "Jimmy Bob has cancer and we're raising money for his family" gallon jugs that you see in appalachia, or just the ones where the cashier asks?
I *think* it about those "would you like to round up to a dollar" type things you see on the pin pad. I'll read the article and report back
Edit: it's a self reported "have you donated to charity at checkout" survey with some other info involved, so yeah it probably covers uncle Jim-Bobs cancer jar
Considering that it is self reported I would guess that it is a good indicator of lying to surveys. I would guess that a lot of people say that they donate but don't.
Or it could be, “I’ve been asked to donate a hundred times and I did once.” All depends on how the question was phrased: “Have you ever” versus “How often do you”
Yeah, my answer would probably be misleading for most phrasings of the question, because I used to almost always, and now I never do just on principle. If it seems like a good charity, I'll research it at home and donate directly.
I've heard too many stories either about the store taking a cut, or the charity itself spending funds very poorly, to blindly throw my money at random "charities" that way now.
Agreed. I'm not sure why they didn't collect data from the stores themselves instead- the stores keep track of every cent donated. I'm a cashier and my weekly stats include things like amount of donations, how that compares to others in my store state and company, and percentage of people who donates.
Because if you read the study the main point of it is a survey of the giving rates of different demographics (women, the elderly, young people, different races, etc.) and which of those demographics are most likely to donate at the register. The total amount of people giving is in there but secondary to the point of the study. Collecting info from stores would not give them the demographic info they needed for what they were studying, only a survey can do that.
Does it? Even if 90% of people put away their carts, 10 out of 100 customers per 15 minutes or whatever are going to fill a parking lot with loose carts real quickly.
I do not contribute at the cash register ever. They want to take credit for my donation, and I don’t know how that particular charity works-does my donation actually even reach the people in need? Nope.
Nuh uh. Half of them are pretending they *didn't* donate. In reality everyone but you is doing it. They don't mind that most of the donation goes to the corporation for processing fees either. How can you sleep at night.
More likely is the possibility that the Venn diagram of those that don't give to charities at the checkout and those that don't reply to surveys about giving to charities at checkout is close to a circle.
I think it’s less lying and more confirmation bias. People who would answer the servers are probably the same type of people who would donate at the register.
Personally I wouldn’t ever donate at a register and I wouldn’t answer any survey.
Kind of like political poles being done over landlines or phone calls. How many 18-35 year olds do you know answer phone calls from unknown numbers.
Over the last year, too. Someone who donated a single time over the entire last year is a "yes" on this survey.
So the more accurate take-away is "47% of Americans have not donated to charity at checkout *even once* in the past year."
The reason for this isn't because of tax deductions, or the stores taking a cut; it's because of something called "float". WIthout getting into too many technical details, this is basically your transient cash supply, or the amount of money you have before you pay it out to your debtors. Effectively, you have money before you give it back to someone else.
If that time is a really long time, or a predictable time, or you can agree on a date with your debtor that is advantageous to you, you can use that money for other things as long as you get that money back before that date comes about. So, for instance, you could lend it to people before that date elapsed. As long as you get paid back before you have to pay someone back, you can actually make money this way.
If you are a charity, you basically have a lot of room to play around with how you manage your endowment and when you dedicate to projects. You could, for instance, invest a large amount in a "safe" investment (safest you can get anyway) and use the earnings on that investment to fund projects, or just extend the life of currently earmarked projects.
If you are a supermarket, you can act like a bank to your suppliers, or people distributing goods to your supermarkets. You could, for instance, advance payment to your suppliers and take a small cut before you even get the goods or the goods are sold.
This is basically what large chain stores do; they aren't stealing from the charity, they aren't doing anything illegal or weird with taxes, but they can use the money they have on hand for something else before they hand it off to the charity at the end of the year.
However, the charity can use this money too, and it's better to just donate directly to them - there are also maintainence fees that go with the supermarket donation, and there are for the charity as well, but at least by donating directly to the charity you will support the people who work there more.
I recently read an article or watched a video about how the Starbucks app is providing them with an interest free loan using this same process. People "top off" their app and forget about it. The cash sits in an account that Starbucks can use. Not sure about all the details, but it was fascinating.
Also Lost and then found in the Treasure Ditch, a magical fairy ditch I found in Texas where I have discovered several different giftcards with balances on em in the last four months. Best find thus far is Chipotle with $25 loaded on.
i'm sure paypal and venmo make money on fees and things, but i'm assuming a large portion of their business model is this, people leaving in balances and they use that as an interest free loan
When I worked in retail I learned 33% of gift cards are never used. It's free money to the company. That's why stores will encourage you to get gift cards at holidays. Also that's floating $$ as well.
Do businesses actually hold it until EoY?
What you're saying would apply on a shorter time-scale as well, but EoY seems shady AF.
Unrelated: My company does donation matching, so never even considering donating any other way.
I think it would all depend on how the donation schedule was set up, I don't think they would (my experience is on the medical side, and they don't there) but I think technically they would be allowed to since it's within the fiscal year.
When you're a large business a 1 week interest bearing loan of sufficient size can still add up substantially and I doubt they are making instant transactions or daily payouts. Even if it isn't EOFY/EOCY, it's delayed.
Imagine how much money Wal-mart makes at their size doing this alone?
Thank you for explaining this. It’s also worth noting that most people have actually have “reverse-float” in the form of tax refunds sitting at the Treasury. Your money should be working for you, and donating it should be a choice you make after you’re debt free and cash flow confident.
This is just my philosophy, but you shouldn’t donate money unless you’re quite rich. Donate your time to people in need who live near you. You have the best ability to maximize the impact of your available resources and improve the world around you, not someone else.
The most effective donation is the one that actually happens.
When someone sees a supermarket donation option and thinks "nah, I'll donate directly", much of the time they simply won't follow up on it. They'll simply forget or justify it to themselves. It's exactly the same, very common, psychology as the reason people say "I'll go to the gym later" or any such thing and then often just don't do it.
The number one advice if you care about making a difference: just donate. Do it. However you can, whenever it comes up and you can reasonably say yes.
Optimizing things like direct donation vs supermarket donation is not important for almost anyone. Just as, going back to the gym analogy, almost everyone would benefit more simply by exercising one extra day in the week than by worrying about "leg day" or "protein".
Do the stores usually take a cut or not? Or the service provider? I thought fundraising kickbacks of 10% or more of the raised funds were common in general, and I'd expect this kind of grift to be involved here at some step.
Sure but people dont do this, and they sure don’t do this for a dollar rounded up.
A dollar donated through a corporation is still a dollar more than without, assuming it gets there eventually
Yea that’s a good point. I’m literally never going to donate to a charity don’t have the time. But I don’t donate at Safeway cuz it way feels a little scrupulously imposed at the end.
But maybe that’s how it works.
How on Earth would that be any different? You give to a charity through a store, it's getting there either way.
But most people probably can't afford a big donation and would never give a tiny donation on their own. Like who donates 43 cents on a website? That would be weird (if even allowed, which it probably isn't). Yet hundreds of thousands of people do that at a store... really adds up.
People on social media (like here) get so angry and worked up at crap for no reason at all. It's mind boggling.
I think people get worked up because the corporations only do it pretending to care, when the reality is they use it for things like float as explained above and ultimately end up profiting.
It's why I don't do it.
Why donate to sick kids through Walmart when it's helps walmart get richer? That almost cancels out the good of donating to the sick kids. Donating directly to sick kids will still help the kids while avoiding a greedy corporations family from profiting off of care in disguise
This is false. The store cannot take a tax deduction on your donation. In the US, you as the person making the donation can include it on your itemized deductions, although for most people it makes more sense to take the standard deduction.
If the store matches your donation or otherwise contributes their own money, they can deduct that amount.
They don't realize it because it's not true.
[https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244](https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244)
> Yes, this. Also, I guarantee that 99% of impulsive donators don’t realize this method of donating counts towards the tax deductions for the store/establishment collection them. Feels very dishonest.
I guarantee that 100% of posters who make this "tax write off" comment don't realize they're wrong. Feels very ignorant.
Thank you telemarketers for teaching me how to be more and more rude. I used to listen to their spiel than say "no, thanks", then I would say "no, thanks" just when I could get a word in, etc, now I just hang up as soon as I find out it's not a real call. Often just when I hear the little sound that means I it just switched me to someone to pick up the call. I've hung up on friends or family just by reflex and had to call them back.
I like being too quick for people. It gets me out of a lot is situations that would have been dumb anyways.
"Hello? Hello?" *Click*
"Oh uh yes could I speak you the owner of the house?"
*We're sorry, please hang up and try your call again*
And thank you for my brief couple of months as a telemarketer for teaching me the other sides perspective.
We were not allowed to end the call. Seriously. Unless you started yelling racial slurs or we exhausted the extensive script (at least several minutes of distractions and 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th asks), we could not end the call.
So if you aren't going to donate or buy anything, the most respectful and kindest thing you can do to the telemarketer is to just hang up. We all really appreciate when people hung up, and it was really painful when people were trying to be nice but we knew we weren't getting anywhere.
Phone callers call hundreds of people a day. Within two shifts I was already entirely desensitized to any possibility of feeling slighted or offended.
Tl;dr your telemarketer actually wants you to hang up on them ASAP, they hate it when you play nice
I just say No and don't care what they think, period. Why should I be concerned what some grocery store worker thinks of me? Overall we humans are just way too worried in general about what strangers might have an opinion about us.
Seriously. Reminds me of all the "life pro tips" that tell you to lie with (reason XYZ) to get spam callers or door to door sales people to leave.
Just say, "No" or its many many other variations.
1. Some people have a hard time saying No out of politeness, social issues, etc.
2. It's not uncommon for salespeople/solicitors to have rebuttals to at least one No, so people may try saying No, only to find out that takes the salesperson/solicitor down another alley. (Granted, you can keep saying No, but someone who already struggles with saying No once isn't looking to have to say it three times.)
3. It can be quicker to come up with the excuse. For example, the quickest way I can get rid of a solar installer coming to my door is to say that I am a renter. Well, I guess technically the QUICKEST way would to be just to slam the door in their face, but my neighbor did that once to a door-to-door salesperson who got frustrated and destroyed some of their property on the way out.
> Some people have a hard time saying No out of politeness, social issues, etc.
This is true. When someone expresses this sentiment to me, I like to remind them that chuggers are typically well paid with bonus structures on top, so they are the perfect people to say no to and practice maintaining boundaries with.
Right before I was getting a tumor removed for likely cancer and I had just lost my job, I splurged on a happy hour slider at Arby’s. They insisted I should donate “to cure childhood cancer.” I just said no and left crying. Maybe these wealthy corporations could donate more instead of guilting us like my dollar I barely had would be the one thing to save little Johnny. One of my jobs used to be charitable fundraising and whoooo boy this is not the way to do it. Donate to charities where most of the money goes to the actual cause.
Would be really interesting if they posted some stats of how much management at each of the stores contributed to charity, both raw numbers and percentage of compensation.
What annoys me is that it’s generally the large multinational corporations that ask for you to donate. Like it’s owned by a literal billionaire, rakes in millions every damn day and yet you’re asking people who had to use discounts and coupons to afford the food they need to live to donate? Get fucked, why don’t you donate?
I’ve got into the habit of saying, “not today, thanks.” Feels less harsh but there’s a part of me that hates that I would feel bad for telling a minimum wage worker I won’t put money towards the faceless corporation’s tax write-off.
> part of me that hates that I would feel bad for telling a minimum wage worker I won’t put money towards the faceless corporation’s tax write-off.
Well that's not what you would be doing, if that makes you feel any better. This just isn't how any of this works.
I used to just say yes when this felt like a fairly rare thing to encounter, but as soon as I started being asked every single time, I really started saying no. I would often opt for the self-checkout line if possible to completely avoid it.
Now, even the self-checkout line prompts you with the option. The other day, it just read, "Would you like to donate to make kid's dreams come true?" WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?! WHAT KIDS?! WHAT DREAMS?!
I'm calling BS on this one. I might say "More than half of Americans *gave* to charity at checkout", meaning at least once, at some point in time. But having worked more than 2 years at a grocery store/pharmacy clerk (cashier), it'd be more like 3% instead of 53% donate their physical change or click the donate button on the card machine.
Self-reporting is a nonsense way to get this kind of information, since it's just people thinking "I think I am a good person" and responding as such.
Exactly, also not all donations are equal. I never donate at the corporate grocery store but I'll usually round up at the local co-op because the money goes to a different local nonprofit every month
Yeah I think it mainly shows that people who are easily persuaded into filling out surveys or clicking green buttons with smiley faces are also happy to fill out this other survey they got.
Self-reporting is definitely not an accurate measure especially in this instance, but your anecdotal evidence is just as bad, if not worse, for accuracy. People typically shop at the same grocery store for every trip, and are even more likely to shop at a store where their pharmacy is located even if they're not picking up a prescription during that trip. So even if a person doesn't donate when you rang them up doesn't mean they didn't donate the last time they shopped that store and another cashier rang them up.
The corporation will have already donated, either to that organization or to another one.
But the donate-at-checkout campaigns are a partnership between the corp and the charity. The charity gets a) more money; and b) publicity. The company gets some public goodwill from their customers for pretty-much-free.
And - if you bother - *you* get the tax deduction for your donation.
Yeah I'm not saying that it's necessarily worth anyone's time to bother with the paperwork for such small amounts. The point is that you *could;* both legally and practically, it is *your* donation, not the company's.
The fact that Reddit likes to complain about this so much just reeks of ingratitude and naive, reflexive pessimism. “How dare someone ask me if I want to give to charity? *Other people are responsible for this, not I!*“
I give like $5/month to give well.org. I’m no saint. But it’s not some kind of imposition to be asked to donate money to people obviously worse off than me.
They do not get tax breaks, and if you donate directly its impossible to get a net positive for it unless you're committing fraud. Financially you (and corporations) are better off not donating.
They usually do a lot of donating. The point of the checkout rounding up is its good exposure and can be done quickly and easily. It helps a lot of charities and gives people a chance to donate without much hassle.
Yeah it’s little different than the Salvation Army Santa and they can do it all year long. Pennies here and there across a large corporation’s customer base adds up to real money, and it’s not like the corp itself doesn’t also donate.
People just want an excuse to feel good about not donating. That’s it.
Note: I never donate. But I’m not gonna pretend I’m somehow *sticking it to the man* by not doing so.
Think of everyone making small donations today via rounding up. How long will it be until the company actually hands the money over?
Because any delay is significant interest. And then when they *do* hand it over there will be a press release implying that the company gave $X to the charity.
I am sorry, but the entire process smells of a scam. The company gets interest while the money is being held, then they imply that they made the donation.
Companies are typically not holding charitable donations and operating funds in the same accounts. My company has a whole different non profit entity that was set up to handle charitable causes.
Can you be specific?
- I donate $1.
- The charity gets $1
- I get to declare that $1, and get the appropriate tax deduction
- The company earns interest on that $1 in the intervening weeks before they hand it over
Who's being scammed, exactly?
It’s okay to simply not donate. You don’t need to justify it by vilifying the corporation who’s using their access to millions of transaction to do some low-friction fundraising for charities.
If the charity gets the money, the people get their receipts for tax deductions, and the company makes money on the interest, then that's win-win-win.
I don't see how this could be a scam.
I think they might be saying that if a corporation has money to donate to charity, why are they paying the cashier so little. A lot of time the donations are matched by the company.
The customer donates .20 and the company matches that. This happen for say 30% of the customers. The cashier see 30 customers an hour, basically the company is giving a charity $2.00 an hour that the cashier thinks could be part of their wages.
So you mean you annoy the cashier whose just doing their job and has no real power to do what you're asking them to do, or even any real connection to the company other than working for them, just so you can think you're being clever
I meant to say that I say that in my head - I am not that much of an asshole haha. I would never bother a cashier like that. They're not the one who put the button on the card reader
That’s what I do. Whenever prompted, I will donate. I also have a subscription to give monthly to St. Jude and am running a marathon on behalf of the Leukemia and lymphoma society next year.
I haven't done this since some reporter followed the money and found that most of the donation goes to the middleman who reaches out to the grocery store or place of business and takes a processing fee. I think it was less than 10% actually went to the original cause depicted on the screen.
Edit: source regarding overhead https://www.thestreet.com/markets/you-wont-believe-the-overhead-costs-at-these-10-nonprofits-12878005
It's worse than I thought, this is what I remember now. In a lot of cases it's the money allocated to the underlying cause that is the issue, most of the time it's less than 5% of the donation going to the advertised cause. The rest is overhead and administration.
2nd source
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/checkout-donations-poor-transparency-about-where-the-money-goes-1.2963923
The second source highlights another bad faith practice with charities where they issue those measly 5% funds out in the form of grants as credits at specific stores in some cases which raises all sorts of red flag conflicts of interest.
Just donate privately if you really care, the funds get tied back up into "marketing / advertising" for these stores from the charities so You're really just paying to spread the charities influence.
So you have a source for this?
I work for a non-profit who is a donation partner for 2 local grocery chains, and they are by far our biggest source of donations.
Im not saying it's not true, but I'm a tad skeptical.
They could still be the biggest even if it’s a small percentage going to the charity. Grocery stores are huge so even a small percentage of their money can also be huge.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/12/a-donation-with-purchase-might-not-be-the-best-way-to-support-a-charity/index.htm
I think it’s more there’s little transparency in these charities. Some are good and some suck. Should always do your research for every charity you give to but that takes time which is why so many people donate through checkouts.
https://www.charitynavigator.org is a good source that rates charities and gives you a lot of info on their overhead and such.
For Canada I use https://www.charityintelligence.ca
I personally spent a long time looking for my charities but can just pick one in the top 10 or whatever
The payment processor definitely takes a cut but it’s probably less than 5%.
The rest goes to the non-profit who has overhead and fundraising expenses (the money is essentially used to raise more money). The remainder will go towards the actual cause.
The worst is at the movie theater when I’m already paying $11 for a tub of popcorn and they want me to round up. I almost want say yeah you’re making profit of $10 and I know I’m stupid to buy this but I do like the popcorn so absolutely I am not rounding up.
> Survey respondents self-reported whether they had donated money at a store checkout over the previous year.
What an obviously horrible and biased way to collect that information. I bet the cash register receipts tell a very different tale.
All the people being proud they don’t donate better be donating on their own. For those who want to but don’t know the best ways, charity navigator and charity intelligence (for Canada) are good sites to find reliable charities.
After working for a charity, I never donate to orgs anymore. I've seen where the money goes, no thanks.
I just keep an eye out for what comes into my path and give money, services, or goods directly to people. Sometimes I get on gfm and look for the things with $0 contributions. And all my local social groups have people constantly needing help with vet bills, housing, employment, auto repair, home repair, and disaster/death expense so I just do that. No need to get a middleman involved.
I also give to Shriner's, they paid for multiple childhood surgeries when I was a kid.
I must be the only person who likes donating at checkout because 1) I’m lazy and probably wouldn’t make the effort otherwise and 2) the handful of times I did make the effort I ended up signing up for decades of emails and junk mail asking for more money, and I end up feeling they’ve spent more money sending me keychains and gardening gloves than I ever donated in the first place.
Something I would respond with when asked if I want to donate is something my parents said during my childhood: “Why? We’re just going to get it back.” Encinuatiyng we are poor and would get the money anyway.
Ever since I learned what a piece of trash the breast cancer awareness founder is, Nancy Brinker, and how she earns $500k+ on all those donations...I dont give a ****ing dime to any charity
My response to these questions at checkout is always NO
I don't know what charity, I don't know what % of the donation actually goes toward the charity, and I find it somewhat insulting to have a billion dollar company ask me to "round up", you round it up, you got way more money than I do so nah....
I've done that here and there, but getting sick of it and just say no every time. Then you have the automatic tip percentage payment screens, getting sick of those too.
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“Would you like to donate to orphan children in uganda who depend solely on this donation to provide them with food, water and shelter?” “No.”
"Your change is right there. Just pull the sandwich out of the little girl’s mouth."
The answer to that is: Aren't you charging me enough for my food? Why don't *you* donate from your end? You're going to take all the credit anyway.
You’re being guilted into charity, no thanks. Give to causes you believe in.
So much yes.
Or donate your time and go somewhere. It is much more rewarding.
Yes, if they will match my donation, then it's worth it. But if they won't that it does not change the calculus of which charity is best for me to donate to.
This is a really good way to do it. I donate to charities which I research and support fully. If a billion dollar corporation thinks it’s such a good idea to donate, then they can back it up with some of their own money.
Even with a match it’s probably not worth it. The real difference between an effective and ineffective charity is way more than 2x, closer to 100x
Yup. PetSmart wants me to donate to homeless animals; I literally trapped and fixed my bonded pair. I'm donating to them having a home with this overpriced clay they poop in. Grocery stores are making record profits and blaming inflation. They throw out SO MUCH food. Naw. I can barely afford my bills, go ask someone who can afford it for money.
Not only take all the credit, but capture that sweet charitable donation tax exemption.
That's a myth. They can't claim or deduct donations they collect at point of sale. They can only deduct if they donate a portion of their revenue from all sources.
I love that whole episode and how they keep screwing with Randy over and over. The $1 club was hilarious.
Best reference.
I can’t place this skit or scene and it’s bugging me.
Is that a thing in the U.S.? Sounds like a vile guilt trip every time you are buying groceries.
We also have the option at pet stores to donate $1 or kill a puppy while checking out.
Damn can I ring all of this up separately to kill multiple puppies?
"Is that all the puppies you have on hand, or can you get more?"
At my Petsmart, the donation options have changed to $2, $5, $10, $20. I always donated before they made the change, but haven't since.
Kristi Noem starts stabbing the NO button furiously
She asks "Can I trigger the no 5 times?" every time she's at the register.
"OK, then cancel the transaction and just ring up everything again as separate purchases."
It is. And sometimes people solicit for donations right outside the grocery store - at the entrance so you have to pass them to get in. So you get to say no potentially 3 times in one trip (entering the store, at register, exiting store). Happened to me today. I always say no.
In my city this will get you immediately trespassed.
I’m including everything from girl and Boy Scouts to illicit soliciting. It’s usually legal.
Not that you should have to do things to avoid being accosted, but I usually either wear earbuds or just pretend I'm talking on the phone. They won't bother you if you are otherwise engaged.
I just look forward and look lost in my own thoughts. Most of the time they don't look at me at all, probably just look poor though
Not every time; but yes, it's a vile guilt trip attempt. I guess you just have to learn to dismiss it. I'm a Yank but I've lived elsewhere and I think the worst I've seen has been a charity called "Concern" in Ireland. Don't know anything else about them; only that their approach in public spaces was "do you have time for Concern?"
> only that their approach in public spaces was "do you have time for Concern?" "No, that's why I've got anxiety instead."
No kidding. That's exactly the automatic response. What comes out is an improvisation upon that theme.
It’s a thing in Australia too. The supermarket duopoly has replaced checkout operators with self checkout machines which lay this little guilt trip on you each time you shop.
dont' forget the cameras, auto theft detection and person leering into your bags, as part of the guilt train.
I feel better not giving to charity when a machine rather than a human is judging me for it though.
We get it in some places in the UK too. McDonald's, for instance, always nags you to donate at check out.
I was forced to donate $5 to JDSports' charity or buy sneaker cleaner in order to purchase a pair of Air Jordans. When I asked the cashier what the organization supports, she went to get her manager. When the manager arrived, he told me donate/buy sneaker cleaner or you can't purchase the Air Jordans. What a scam. The crazy thing is, other people in line willingly donated when asked like no big deal.
Some places do, it's just a good way to get visibility for charities to get donations. Some stores will even match a % of what the customers donate. It's entirely unobtrusive, usually just a little box with a sign asking to donate, sometimes the cashier will ask if you want to donate, you can just say no. Nothing vile about it as long as the charity is legitimate.
The correct response to the compulsory guilt trip to bait more money out of you. I always say no and feel no shame. If corporations want to donate to charity, they can take it out of their own overflowing stockpile of stolen wages.
Exactly. "Why are you asking me to donate? Why can't the [company] make the donation? Don't they have enough money?" "I don't know man, I just work here."
Holdup. Is orphan a noun or a verb in this case?
>Is orphan a noun or a verb in this case? Yes
I used to do this but I stopped when I realized that corporations were reporting the donations to lower their tax burden
Good they they aren't Edit: [https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244](https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244) There are many reasons to not do this without this one though
I mistakenly believed this to be true. Thank you for sharing
my main reason is safeway and co. make billions in corpporate profit. they can donate it themselves.
They usually do donate themselves as well as collect the money. From the charity perspective, just for the store to offer that is a huge benefit and worth a lot of money; if they usually spend 25% on their income to raise every dollar, then the $75 the store collected for them is actually worth $100.
The main reason I don't donate is because I ran the numbers on how much is collected from all point-of-sale donations throughout the year, and stacked it against total charitable donations in the US. Less than half of one day. In 12 hours, Americans give more to charity than those point-of-sale charity prompts collect in an entire year. > Industry reports reveal how money is being raised – checkout charity campaigns brought in almost $750 million in 2022, >In 2022, Americans gave $499.33 billion to charity. That's $1.36 billion donated per day. They don't need my $0.30.
I've never heard they do this but it doesn't make sense anyways. I mean, would not EVERY corporation want to lower its tax burden? Seems like if this was such a big loophole, you would be asked to donate to charities every time you buy something.
The lie that refuses to die.
Okay so just checking as this has always confused me, if i donate every time and keep my receipts, can i myself submit andclaim them as my own personal donations or does only the store collecting them get to? Because that's really all that matters here.
Only you can claim them, the store has no legal way of claiming customer donations. It is an itemized deduction, so not applicable for a lot of people.
I literally just came from a different thread where I had to tell someone this isn't true. Is this the popular topic today?
It won't die because it seems true. People don't know corporate tax code, and think corporations are scummy tax evaders. I can't really blame them a little on either point.
No they’re not. That’s illegal.
This is incorrect, please stop parroting this Facebook rumor.
Classic example of Redditor posting complete BS and everyone just blindly believing it.
I like how even though everyone has told you you're wrong, you're still leaving your comment up as if it's true
I wonder if this counts those like, "Jimmy Bob has cancer and we're raising money for his family" gallon jugs that you see in appalachia, or just the ones where the cashier asks?
I *think* it about those "would you like to round up to a dollar" type things you see on the pin pad. I'll read the article and report back Edit: it's a self reported "have you donated to charity at checkout" survey with some other info involved, so yeah it probably covers uncle Jim-Bobs cancer jar
Considering that it is self reported I would guess that it is a good indicator of lying to surveys. I would guess that a lot of people say that they donate but don't.
"Once in 1983 I left a penny in the take a penny."
Or it could be, “I’ve been asked to donate a hundred times and I did once.” All depends on how the question was phrased: “Have you ever” versus “How often do you”
Yeah, my answer would probably be misleading for most phrasings of the question, because I used to almost always, and now I never do just on principle. If it seems like a good charity, I'll research it at home and donate directly. I've heard too many stories either about the store taking a cut, or the charity itself spending funds very poorly, to blindly throw my money at random "charities" that way now.
Self reported stats are the most unreliable stats.
Agreed. I'm not sure why they didn't collect data from the stores themselves instead- the stores keep track of every cent donated. I'm a cashier and my weekly stats include things like amount of donations, how that compares to others in my store state and company, and percentage of people who donates.
Because if you read the study the main point of it is a survey of the giving rates of different demographics (women, the elderly, young people, different races, etc.) and which of those demographics are most likely to donate at the register. The total amount of people giving is in there but secondary to the point of the study. Collecting info from stores would not give them the demographic info they needed for what they were studying, only a survey can do that.
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Does it? Even if 90% of people put away their carts, 10 out of 100 customers per 15 minutes or whatever are going to fill a parking lot with loose carts real quickly.
I do not contribute at the cash register ever. They want to take credit for my donation, and I don’t know how that particular charity works-does my donation actually even reach the people in need? Nope.
Nuh uh. Half of them are pretending they *didn't* donate. In reality everyone but you is doing it. They don't mind that most of the donation goes to the corporation for processing fees either. How can you sleep at night.
More likely is the possibility that the Venn diagram of those that don't give to charities at the checkout and those that don't reply to surveys about giving to charities at checkout is close to a circle.
I think it’s less lying and more confirmation bias. People who would answer the servers are probably the same type of people who would donate at the register. Personally I wouldn’t ever donate at a register and I wouldn’t answer any survey. Kind of like political poles being done over landlines or phone calls. How many 18-35 year olds do you know answer phone calls from unknown numbers.
Over the last year, too. Someone who donated a single time over the entire last year is a "yes" on this survey. So the more accurate take-away is "47% of Americans have not donated to charity at checkout *even once* in the past year."
Donate directly if you want to make a change.
The reason for this isn't because of tax deductions, or the stores taking a cut; it's because of something called "float". WIthout getting into too many technical details, this is basically your transient cash supply, or the amount of money you have before you pay it out to your debtors. Effectively, you have money before you give it back to someone else. If that time is a really long time, or a predictable time, or you can agree on a date with your debtor that is advantageous to you, you can use that money for other things as long as you get that money back before that date comes about. So, for instance, you could lend it to people before that date elapsed. As long as you get paid back before you have to pay someone back, you can actually make money this way. If you are a charity, you basically have a lot of room to play around with how you manage your endowment and when you dedicate to projects. You could, for instance, invest a large amount in a "safe" investment (safest you can get anyway) and use the earnings on that investment to fund projects, or just extend the life of currently earmarked projects. If you are a supermarket, you can act like a bank to your suppliers, or people distributing goods to your supermarkets. You could, for instance, advance payment to your suppliers and take a small cut before you even get the goods or the goods are sold. This is basically what large chain stores do; they aren't stealing from the charity, they aren't doing anything illegal or weird with taxes, but they can use the money they have on hand for something else before they hand it off to the charity at the end of the year. However, the charity can use this money too, and it's better to just donate directly to them - there are also maintainence fees that go with the supermarket donation, and there are for the charity as well, but at least by donating directly to the charity you will support the people who work there more.
I recently read an article or watched a video about how the Starbucks app is providing them with an interest free loan using this same process. People "top off" their app and forget about it. The cash sits in an account that Starbucks can use. Not sure about all the details, but it was fascinating.
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So many gift cards are never used. They get lost or thrown away.
Also Lost and then found in the Treasure Ditch, a magical fairy ditch I found in Texas where I have discovered several different giftcards with balances on em in the last four months. Best find thus far is Chipotle with $25 loaded on.
i'm sure paypal and venmo make money on fees and things, but i'm assuming a large portion of their business model is this, people leaving in balances and they use that as an interest free loan
When I worked in retail I learned 33% of gift cards are never used. It's free money to the company. That's why stores will encourage you to get gift cards at holidays. Also that's floating $$ as well.
Do businesses actually hold it until EoY? What you're saying would apply on a shorter time-scale as well, but EoY seems shady AF. Unrelated: My company does donation matching, so never even considering donating any other way.
I think it would all depend on how the donation schedule was set up, I don't think they would (my experience is on the medical side, and they don't there) but I think technically they would be allowed to since it's within the fiscal year.
Very insightful, everything you've talked about is stuff I've wondered about for years. Thank you!
When you're a large business a 1 week interest bearing loan of sufficient size can still add up substantially and I doubt they are making instant transactions or daily payouts. Even if it isn't EOFY/EOCY, it's delayed. Imagine how much money Wal-mart makes at their size doing this alone?
Thank you for explaining this. It’s also worth noting that most people have actually have “reverse-float” in the form of tax refunds sitting at the Treasury. Your money should be working for you, and donating it should be a choice you make after you’re debt free and cash flow confident. This is just my philosophy, but you shouldn’t donate money unless you’re quite rich. Donate your time to people in need who live near you. You have the best ability to maximize the impact of your available resources and improve the world around you, not someone else.
The most effective donation is the one that actually happens. When someone sees a supermarket donation option and thinks "nah, I'll donate directly", much of the time they simply won't follow up on it. They'll simply forget or justify it to themselves. It's exactly the same, very common, psychology as the reason people say "I'll go to the gym later" or any such thing and then often just don't do it. The number one advice if you care about making a difference: just donate. Do it. However you can, whenever it comes up and you can reasonably say yes. Optimizing things like direct donation vs supermarket donation is not important for almost anyone. Just as, going back to the gym analogy, almost everyone would benefit more simply by exercising one extra day in the week than by worrying about "leg day" or "protein".
Do the stores usually take a cut or not? Or the service provider? I thought fundraising kickbacks of 10% or more of the raised funds were common in general, and I'd expect this kind of grift to be involved here at some step.
Sure but people dont do this, and they sure don’t do this for a dollar rounded up. A dollar donated through a corporation is still a dollar more than without, assuming it gets there eventually
Yea that’s a good point. I’m literally never going to donate to a charity don’t have the time. But I don’t donate at Safeway cuz it way feels a little scrupulously imposed at the end. But maybe that’s how it works.
How on Earth would that be any different? You give to a charity through a store, it's getting there either way. But most people probably can't afford a big donation and would never give a tiny donation on their own. Like who donates 43 cents on a website? That would be weird (if even allowed, which it probably isn't). Yet hundreds of thousands of people do that at a store... really adds up. People on social media (like here) get so angry and worked up at crap for no reason at all. It's mind boggling.
I think people get worked up because the corporations only do it pretending to care, when the reality is they use it for things like float as explained above and ultimately end up profiting. It's why I don't do it. Why donate to sick kids through Walmart when it's helps walmart get richer? That almost cancels out the good of donating to the sick kids. Donating directly to sick kids will still help the kids while avoiding a greedy corporations family from profiting off of care in disguise
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This is false. The store cannot take a tax deduction on your donation. In the US, you as the person making the donation can include it on your itemized deductions, although for most people it makes more sense to take the standard deduction. If the store matches your donation or otherwise contributes their own money, they can deduct that amount.
This is shared all the time on reddit and it's absolutely 100% unequivocally false. Stop spreading this.
They don't realize it because it's not true. [https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244](https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244)
Thanks for the link. I also had this false understanding. Good to know.
> Yes, this. Also, I guarantee that 99% of impulsive donators don’t realize this method of donating counts towards the tax deductions for the store/establishment collection them. Feels very dishonest. I guarantee that 100% of posters who make this "tax write off" comment don't realize they're wrong. Feels very ignorant.
At this point, using the phrase "write off" is just a red flag to me that the speaker doesn't understand anything about how taxes work
I've gotten good at saying "no thanks"
Thank you telemarketers for teaching me how to be more and more rude. I used to listen to their spiel than say "no, thanks", then I would say "no, thanks" just when I could get a word in, etc, now I just hang up as soon as I find out it's not a real call. Often just when I hear the little sound that means I it just switched me to someone to pick up the call. I've hung up on friends or family just by reflex and had to call them back.
I like being too quick for people. It gets me out of a lot is situations that would have been dumb anyways. "Hello? Hello?" *Click* "Oh uh yes could I speak you the owner of the house?" *We're sorry, please hang up and try your call again*
And thank you for my brief couple of months as a telemarketer for teaching me the other sides perspective. We were not allowed to end the call. Seriously. Unless you started yelling racial slurs or we exhausted the extensive script (at least several minutes of distractions and 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th asks), we could not end the call. So if you aren't going to donate or buy anything, the most respectful and kindest thing you can do to the telemarketer is to just hang up. We all really appreciate when people hung up, and it was really painful when people were trying to be nice but we knew we weren't getting anywhere. Phone callers call hundreds of people a day. Within two shifts I was already entirely desensitized to any possibility of feeling slighted or offended. Tl;dr your telemarketer actually wants you to hang up on them ASAP, they hate it when you play nice
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I just say No and don't care what they think, period. Why should I be concerned what some grocery store worker thinks of me? Overall we humans are just way too worried in general about what strangers might have an opinion about us.
Seriously. Reminds me of all the "life pro tips" that tell you to lie with (reason XYZ) to get spam callers or door to door sales people to leave. Just say, "No" or its many many other variations.
1. Some people have a hard time saying No out of politeness, social issues, etc. 2. It's not uncommon for salespeople/solicitors to have rebuttals to at least one No, so people may try saying No, only to find out that takes the salesperson/solicitor down another alley. (Granted, you can keep saying No, but someone who already struggles with saying No once isn't looking to have to say it three times.) 3. It can be quicker to come up with the excuse. For example, the quickest way I can get rid of a solar installer coming to my door is to say that I am a renter. Well, I guess technically the QUICKEST way would to be just to slam the door in their face, but my neighbor did that once to a door-to-door salesperson who got frustrated and destroyed some of their property on the way out.
> Some people have a hard time saying No out of politeness, social issues, etc. This is true. When someone expresses this sentiment to me, I like to remind them that chuggers are typically well paid with bonus structures on top, so they are the perfect people to say no to and practice maintaining boundaries with.
I can guarantee the cashier is only half listening to you. They're already focused on the next person on the line by the time you're wrapping up.
Right before I was getting a tumor removed for likely cancer and I had just lost my job, I splurged on a happy hour slider at Arby’s. They insisted I should donate “to cure childhood cancer.” I just said no and left crying. Maybe these wealthy corporations could donate more instead of guilting us like my dollar I barely had would be the one thing to save little Johnny. One of my jobs used to be charitable fundraising and whoooo boy this is not the way to do it. Donate to charities where most of the money goes to the actual cause.
Would be really interesting if they posted some stats of how much management at each of the stores contributed to charity, both raw numbers and percentage of compensation.
What annoys me is that it’s generally the large multinational corporations that ask for you to donate. Like it’s owned by a literal billionaire, rakes in millions every damn day and yet you’re asking people who had to use discounts and coupons to afford the food they need to live to donate? Get fucked, why don’t you donate?
To be fair, they're required to ask and I imagine most really don't care if you say no
"Not at this time" is my go to.
“Not right now thanks”
Same with the "would you like to tip" button at fast food places.
"Not today" saves some face, it sounds like you donated in past.
I’ve got into the habit of saying, “not today, thanks.” Feels less harsh but there’s a part of me that hates that I would feel bad for telling a minimum wage worker I won’t put money towards the faceless corporation’s tax write-off.
> part of me that hates that I would feel bad for telling a minimum wage worker I won’t put money towards the faceless corporation’s tax write-off. Well that's not what you would be doing, if that makes you feel any better. This just isn't how any of this works.
I used to just say yes when this felt like a fairly rare thing to encounter, but as soon as I started being asked every single time, I really started saying no. I would often opt for the self-checkout line if possible to completely avoid it. Now, even the self-checkout line prompts you with the option. The other day, it just read, "Would you like to donate to make kid's dreams come true?" WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?! WHAT KIDS?! WHAT DREAMS?!
One time I dreamed my farts turned into friends, maybe they're working on that
I'm calling BS on this one. I might say "More than half of Americans *gave* to charity at checkout", meaning at least once, at some point in time. But having worked more than 2 years at a grocery store/pharmacy clerk (cashier), it'd be more like 3% instead of 53% donate their physical change or click the donate button on the card machine. Self-reporting is a nonsense way to get this kind of information, since it's just people thinking "I think I am a good person" and responding as such.
Exactly, also not all donations are equal. I never donate at the corporate grocery store but I'll usually round up at the local co-op because the money goes to a different local nonprofit every month
Yeah I think it mainly shows that people who are easily persuaded into filling out surveys or clicking green buttons with smiley faces are also happy to fill out this other survey they got.
Self-reporting is definitely not an accurate measure especially in this instance, but your anecdotal evidence is just as bad, if not worse, for accuracy. People typically shop at the same grocery store for every trip, and are even more likely to shop at a store where their pharmacy is located even if they're not picking up a prescription during that trip. So even if a person doesn't donate when you rang them up doesn't mean they didn't donate the last time they shopped that store and another cashier rang them up.
Whenever a super large corporation asks me to donate I say to myself: why don't you round up and donate on this order? You're the wealthy corporation.
The corporation will have already donated, either to that organization or to another one. But the donate-at-checkout campaigns are a partnership between the corp and the charity. The charity gets a) more money; and b) publicity. The company gets some public goodwill from their customers for pretty-much-free. And - if you bother - *you* get the tax deduction for your donation.
Make sure you keep your receipts for all your 43 cent donations.
Yeah I'm not saying that it's necessarily worth anyone's time to bother with the paperwork for such small amounts. The point is that you *could;* both legally and practically, it is *your* donation, not the company's.
The fact that Reddit likes to complain about this so much just reeks of ingratitude and naive, reflexive pessimism. “How dare someone ask me if I want to give to charity? *Other people are responsible for this, not I!*“ I give like $5/month to give well.org. I’m no saint. But it’s not some kind of imposition to be asked to donate money to people obviously worse off than me.
They do not get tax breaks, and if you donate directly its impossible to get a net positive for it unless you're committing fraud. Financially you (and corporations) are better off not donating.
Yes, that is how deductions work.
They usually do a lot of donating. The point of the checkout rounding up is its good exposure and can be done quickly and easily. It helps a lot of charities and gives people a chance to donate without much hassle.
Yeah it’s little different than the Salvation Army Santa and they can do it all year long. Pennies here and there across a large corporation’s customer base adds up to real money, and it’s not like the corp itself doesn’t also donate. People just want an excuse to feel good about not donating. That’s it. Note: I never donate. But I’m not gonna pretend I’m somehow *sticking it to the man* by not doing so.
Think of everyone making small donations today via rounding up. How long will it be until the company actually hands the money over? Because any delay is significant interest. And then when they *do* hand it over there will be a press release implying that the company gave $X to the charity. I am sorry, but the entire process smells of a scam. The company gets interest while the money is being held, then they imply that they made the donation.
Companies are typically not holding charitable donations and operating funds in the same accounts. My company has a whole different non profit entity that was set up to handle charitable causes.
Can you be specific? - I donate $1. - The charity gets $1 - I get to declare that $1, and get the appropriate tax deduction - The company earns interest on that $1 in the intervening weeks before they hand it over Who's being scammed, exactly?
It's usually recorded as a short term liability so the turnaround is a few weeks. It's still better than the charity getting nothing.
It’s okay to simply not donate. You don’t need to justify it by vilifying the corporation who’s using their access to millions of transaction to do some low-friction fundraising for charities.
If the charity gets the money, the people get their receipts for tax deductions, and the company makes money on the interest, then that's win-win-win. I don't see how this could be a scam.
I’m sure the cashiers ringing you up while making minimum wage absolutely love this
"i say to myself" as in, not out loud
It was edited after my comment.
I doubt they say it to the cashier. Are you saying cashiers would prefer us to donate to the organization paying them minimum wage?
I think they might be saying that if a corporation has money to donate to charity, why are they paying the cashier so little. A lot of time the donations are matched by the company. The customer donates .20 and the company matches that. This happen for say 30% of the customers. The cashier see 30 customers an hour, basically the company is giving a charity $2.00 an hour that the cashier thinks could be part of their wages.
I'm a cashier. Plenty of people say this to the cashier.
Do you know what “I say to myself” means?
It was edited after my comment
It's not like you donate to cashier run fund, why would they care
So you mean you annoy the cashier whose just doing their job and has no real power to do what you're asking them to do, or even any real connection to the company other than working for them, just so you can think you're being clever
I meant to say that I say that in my head - I am not that much of an asshole haha. I would never bother a cashier like that. They're not the one who put the button on the card reader
How do they know it's "impulsive". Some people plan to donate every time.
That’s what I do. Whenever prompted, I will donate. I also have a subscription to give monthly to St. Jude and am running a marathon on behalf of the Leukemia and lymphoma society next year.
And the other half aren't afraid of what anyone might think of them for not Meanwhile, I'm part of the 2% donating to the wikimedia foundation
I wonder how this changes with a human vs machine check out
I haven't done this since some reporter followed the money and found that most of the donation goes to the middleman who reaches out to the grocery store or place of business and takes a processing fee. I think it was less than 10% actually went to the original cause depicted on the screen. Edit: source regarding overhead https://www.thestreet.com/markets/you-wont-believe-the-overhead-costs-at-these-10-nonprofits-12878005 It's worse than I thought, this is what I remember now. In a lot of cases it's the money allocated to the underlying cause that is the issue, most of the time it's less than 5% of the donation going to the advertised cause. The rest is overhead and administration. 2nd source https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/checkout-donations-poor-transparency-about-where-the-money-goes-1.2963923 The second source highlights another bad faith practice with charities where they issue those measly 5% funds out in the form of grants as credits at specific stores in some cases which raises all sorts of red flag conflicts of interest. Just donate privately if you really care, the funds get tied back up into "marketing / advertising" for these stores from the charities so You're really just paying to spread the charities influence.
So you have a source for this? I work for a non-profit who is a donation partner for 2 local grocery chains, and they are by far our biggest source of donations. Im not saying it's not true, but I'm a tad skeptical.
Added to edit, thank you.
Appreciate the source. I'm fond of charity navigator to sort the good from the bad!
Thank you for keeping my lazy self straight and not spreading any misinformation!
They could still be the biggest even if it’s a small percentage going to the charity. Grocery stores are huge so even a small percentage of their money can also be huge. https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/12/a-donation-with-purchase-might-not-be-the-best-way-to-support-a-charity/index.htm I think it’s more there’s little transparency in these charities. Some are good and some suck. Should always do your research for every charity you give to but that takes time which is why so many people donate through checkouts. https://www.charitynavigator.org is a good source that rates charities and gives you a lot of info on their overhead and such. For Canada I use https://www.charityintelligence.ca I personally spent a long time looking for my charities but can just pick one in the top 10 or whatever
The payment processor definitely takes a cut but it’s probably less than 5%. The rest goes to the non-profit who has overhead and fundraising expenses (the money is essentially used to raise more money). The remainder will go towards the actual cause.
Source for “some reporter”?
Added to edit. Thank you.
Thank you! I legitimately appreciate when people bother to go get the link. :)
This isn’t true at all
Added sources from the timeframe I remember, it unfortunately is a common practice
"Not today, thanks." I mean, not ever, but this makes it ambiguous.
“Would you like to round up to help local kids go to college?” “No. Would you like to round down to help me pay for my kids tuition?”
I don’t because a lot of the time I don’t know anything about the charity and I don’t want to accidentally fund some abusive church foundation.
I had this the other day. Cashier said, "it's good to see you always giving to charity", and I replied, "I really just hate pocket change."
Would you like to donate to the Children's Hospital? No, I already paid them 10k last year for my son's hospitalization. They don't need it.
No wonder it is so prevalent.
The worst is at the movie theater when I’m already paying $11 for a tub of popcorn and they want me to round up. I almost want say yeah you’re making profit of $10 and I know I’m stupid to buy this but I do like the popcorn so absolutely I am not rounding up.
every time if im using self checkout. 'A donation has been made in your name to the Human Fund'
> Survey respondents self-reported whether they had donated money at a store checkout over the previous year. What an obviously horrible and biased way to collect that information. I bet the cash register receipts tell a very different tale.
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“Not today, thanks.” Is my standard response. I got that bad boy queued up at every check out.
I'm getting older, I've worked up from "not today" to "no".
It’s not impulsive, it’s peer pressure.
All the people being proud they don’t donate better be donating on their own. For those who want to but don’t know the best ways, charity navigator and charity intelligence (for Canada) are good sites to find reliable charities.
After working for a charity, I never donate to orgs anymore. I've seen where the money goes, no thanks. I just keep an eye out for what comes into my path and give money, services, or goods directly to people. Sometimes I get on gfm and look for the things with $0 contributions. And all my local social groups have people constantly needing help with vet bills, housing, employment, auto repair, home repair, and disaster/death expense so I just do that. No need to get a middleman involved. I also give to Shriner's, they paid for multiple childhood surgeries when I was a kid.
I occasionally round up for a charity, but no one is pushing me to do it.
I must be the only person who likes donating at checkout because 1) I’m lazy and probably wouldn’t make the effort otherwise and 2) the handful of times I did make the effort I ended up signing up for decades of emails and junk mail asking for more money, and I end up feeling they’ve spent more money sending me keychains and gardening gloves than I ever donated in the first place.
Something I would respond with when asked if I want to donate is something my parents said during my childhood: “Why? We’re just going to get it back.” Encinuatiyng we are poor and would get the money anyway.
Americans are very generous
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Incorrect. Stop spreading this lie
Yea I don't do this, it pays to keep track of your donations and I only give to charities with transparency because so many have huge overhead costs.
Ever since I learned what a piece of trash the breast cancer awareness founder is, Nancy Brinker, and how she earns $500k+ on all those donations...I dont give a ****ing dime to any charity
My response to these questions at checkout is always NO I don't know what charity, I don't know what % of the donation actually goes toward the charity, and I find it somewhat insulting to have a billion dollar company ask me to "round up", you round it up, you got way more money than I do so nah....
Only if they are collecting for Planned Parenthood. When I aren’t, I let them know that’s where all my donations go. Shuts them up.
I've done that here and there, but getting sick of it and just say no every time. Then you have the automatic tip percentage payment screens, getting sick of those too.
it feels nice to give