Celebrity endorsements are advertising for themselves. Creating a carefully curated public personality is what encourages networks and creators to hire particular celebrities. These endorsements are as much about getting attention to make themselves more employable as they are about championing a cause.
At least it brings awareness to a cause, but you can never really forget that there is an underlying self interest in the whole venture.
In Germany, we have Pfand, which means: You pay 25 cents more for a bottle of water and get it back when you return the empty bottle.
And when you return it to LIDL (supermarket), they give you the choice to donate those 25 cents to charity or keep it for yourself. The family behind LIDL is the richest in Germany…
The family behind LIDL is the richest in Germany…
I shop at LiDL here in the US. It’s interesting that they’re doing so well when they have much lower prices and pay their employees better than other grocery stores in the area, yet these other stores claim to be barely scraping by or even losing money.
They are probably working on lower margins in the US for a few years to gain market control. They got rich in Europe they can break even in the us and still win.
Also they own “Schwarz Gruppe” which is a huge conglomerate including lidl. They also have cloud hosting, publishing, research etc. They are aiming to be the european alphabet (Google)
When can I get onto the European search engine alternative?
I’m torn, is there a good bit in the first half or is it all a scam to guilt us into losing money and LIDL still comes out on top on average?
The outcome is neutral for LIDL they don’t get the deposit money either way. If anything they would prefer you don’t return the bottles at all, since it would avoid processing costs and depending on the distribution agreement they might even pocket part of the deposit.
This - the dirty secret of most rebates and coupons is that without them customers don’t buy the product as much. But then for those who don’t have the discount still but for the increased price.
THEN most charities offered are in affiliating with the offering corp. Meaning they get tax write offs and a portion of the donation through their offering. The donation is made in the business name, not yours.
If you don’t return it or discount, they pocket it.
A celebrity being an advocate for a charity is honestly the very last thing on my list of problems that need to be addressed. Most Hollywood types we all know are several orders of magnitude less wealthy than our billionaire overlords. At least they’re trying to do something beneficial
Yeah maybe the average person can’t be bothered to make a distinction between billionaires and millionaires (most celebs) even though the difference happens to be 1000 to 1.
But they should, if working class solidarity matters and isn’t a one-way street.
1 - it usually gets them a tax write off 2 - they do little other than talk about it and any explanation of their involvement is usually heavily exaggerated (except maybe John Cena’s make a wish work) 3 - they view their name attachment as worth enough, and people aupplaide them for the lip service, further feeding their narcissism 4 - it is wielded around with their superiority complex, leveraged against others more often than not 5 - the orgs themselves mostly go to funding their leadership groups. Where the largest cost (overhead) is paid before money actually makes it claimed place of benefit. The largest part of the overhead are the leadership and executive members. And they make CRAZY money for “non-profit” positions.
That’s a lot of generalizing. Sure, there are dysfunctional nonprofits and some overall bad people, but there are also some amazing nonprofits and people doing great work. I don’t like painting this with a broad brush like that
Having worked for them - I am okay with guilty until proven otherwise. Because those who are legit prove so quickly.
When you say “them,” like who are you talking about? That’s what I’m talking about, using the term “them” to mean “all nonprofits” is fucking awful
Most non-profits. And if you want to continue to support them as though most of them are good or a net positive then you are a fool.
Im Not defending the billionaires but the reason the Hollywood types are even brought up at all is they are 100 times more peachy than billionaires who just bank roll some dark money super PAC so you never actually hear from the person themselves
This is also how round ups at checkouts like Walmart work.
I always seem like an asshole, but I never round up. I used to work at a nonprofit and those collections are nothing stacked against a big 500k donation from a corp. They are mostly for awareness.
That and I don’t know what some of them are supporting. If I donate something I like to know what it is first. The 18 year old worker is not going to enlightened me well they scan my cans of green beans.
I still donate to a few causes everytime I can, but I do it in larger amounts than 10 cents and directly through them.
I never donate through large companies like that, either. I’m not here to help whitewash some billionaire’s machinations to prey on the masses. I know they can’t take credit for your donations, but they get to say bullshit things like, “through our partnerships, we helped charities…”
I never do. I don’t trust the Waltons. They have $423 billion. They could handle it if they chose to.
And fuck them for taking my money, donating it, and taking the tax write off themselves
Edit: the CPA cartel has notified me this indeed fake news. I think the book cookers are in this thread
It would be better if, af the very least, they matched the amount. Even so, people shopping at Walmart are not, middle of the bell curve, people who afford to donate.
The ideal option would be just donating. The Waltons are worth $423billion, together, last check. They could probably end hunger in the US if they wanted to.
I’ve been told that’s not how it works. Mostly because you donated it, so it’s your write off. I don’t know though.
This. It’s illegal for them to take the deduction. The only way they could is if they claimed your donation as income then claimed it as a deduction, which would get them nowhere.
I’m not saying trust big companies, but on the checkout charity things I think the risk far outweighs the reward for them to cheat.
One thing I do wonder about is if they put the donated money into an account and collect interest on it before donating it. I’ve never been able to find an answer to that, but I suspect it’s the same. Big risk, little reward.
Laws don’t mean anything anymore if they’re simply not enforced and the criminals are in charge
That doesn’t mean it’s happening.
At a large corporation, there would be employees setting up the charity drive, the accounting department, probably the legal department involved. They’d need to keep track of the charity money coming in, make sure it’s not counted as charity, make sure it’s not counted as income, make sure none of the departments ask questions, pay the charity from money that is not shown as income or charity, get a receipt from the charity saying the money came from the company’s money and not the big nationwide charity drive they held for 6 months that ended last week, file taxes saying they paid X amount to charity from company money but they can’t show it coming from company money.
Not a single person involved in this would profit from it and most would be mortified at what they saw. The company would barely even profit from it. I mean, Wal-mart getting a tax deduction for a million dollars they raised for charity would probably pay for the remodeling of the deli department at one store.
This is a situation where not only are the risks not worth it, the work isn’t worth it. It’s a thousand times easier to just do it right.
It’s not really for the write off. Walmart doesn’t give a shit about your paltry pennies. It’s mostly so they get the PR and the ability to hand over a giant check and say ‘they’ raised such and such. The amount on the check will seem like a large number to idiots but it will be a relatively small number in comparison to profits etc.
You’re effectively bank rolling their advertising / good will campaign.
It was very dodgy for a while, like Woolies owned the charity you were donating to, and the name was weird too. Basically “give us extra money and we might give homeless people our expired food items instead of throwing them in the trash” so you’re paying them to deal with their own waste. But the name was like, Support Local Farmers or something I don’t remember. Then they tightened the laws, and now it’s only moderately dodgy because that money isn’t separated out properly and only a percentage of it ends up going to the charity. That’s the last I heard of it in Australia at least.
I would hope so, do they provide a tax receipt at the end of the transaction?
If you ask for a receipt, yeah.
That’s not how write offs work…
The myth that just won’t die no matter how many times it’s corrected. Every thread, every time, someone says this myth.
Not how that works.
I just assume they have a charity relationship that meets the minimum to not technically lying, while allowing them to just keep 90% of the money.
That’s mostly virtue signalling.
You’re right that the corporation should be donating, but the reason they do it is to imply that they have some social responsibility when they really don’t.
Like when Swift donated 1 million. It’s basically $1 for us poors. Probably way less.
not quite? it would be if they pressured 10000 people each into giving half a mars bar to the homeless. they better give away their own mars bars of course, but things generally aren’t black and white.
Yes exactly it’s about their power to influence
They are celebrities, so if they’re rich it’s usually because they’ve convinced 100,000 people to give them 10% of a candy bar each. They’re using that influence to also convince people to give 10% of a candy bar to charity, too.
Feeding the homeless on a Mars bar diet is not the solution. The homeless need a path to a healthy life.
And that was definitely the point they were making
You sure? I thought they pointed out that celebrities could share more.
And who keeps mars bars in the fridge?
Psycho
When it’s really hot you can put them in the fridge, and then cut off thin slices to have as occasional cold treats … rather than swallowing them whole, which is something I’d never do.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but stop allowing yourself to be persuaded by celebrities and influencers.
That’s not to say don’t help those less fortunate. But do it because you want to, and in ways that make sense to you.
Because collectively we’ve become a bunch of fucking followers, and this does the world no favors. Trust the good instincts from within yourself.
/rant
the people who need to hear that would tell you to go fuck yourself.
their meaning in life derives from worshiping these people and fantasizing about being their friend.
I know it’s not generally popular here on Lemmy but some scripture comes to mind: 2 Corinthians 9:7
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
The compulsion of celebrities and influencers would apply here I think.
God: No compulsion, give as you decide.
Also God: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. But again, no pressure guys.
Blessed are the cheesemakers?
I mean they give a few Mars bars of their own too, but they are then left with ~10000 Mars bars at the end of it.
This so how all rich people are.
This is a huge red herring. Why are we going after celebrities? Unless those celebrities are Taylor Swift or Paris Hilton or any celebrity billionaire they’re on our side. The only war is class war. As someone whose net worth is negative, I have more in common with Brian Cranston and Zendaya than any of the billionaires class who we should actually be fighting.
I don’t know if OP is doing this on purpose or not but posts like this help the enemy. This kind of thing feels really suspicious. Like it’s really trying to point at left leaning actors that speak out against the billionaire class during the Oscars or whatever.
Yep. The difference between 1billion and 1million is typically rounded to 1billion.
So from the Epstein class POV, indeed not much difference between celebrities and commoners. They just have more followers.
I too hate it when people campaign for charities unless they themselves have made themselves destitute.
They are damned if they do and and damned if they don’t. If they don’t then people lambast them for not utilizing their platform. If they do then they’re sticking their nose into not their business and not donating enough no matter how much they donate. There’s no way to win for them, then again being a public figure is a curse and guarantees there’s always someone who’s going to be disgruntled.
I say all publicity for a good charity is good and all giving is good. If someone makes 100K and gives 50 that’s awesome, if someone makes 40k and gives 20 that’s also awesome, all donations are good to a worthwhile cause and charity.
celebrities are not expected to solicit donations for charities. if they care about charity they should just donate from the millions they have, instead of asking poor people to do it for them.
I don’t see a problem doing both. If you believe in a charity and can afford to give, you should. And you certainly can then encourage others to follow suit. This applies to celebrities too.
But this meme is describing celebrities asking others to give for a cause they aren’t supporting themselves, despite having much more money to spare. They probably view it more as just another job, but if they are doing more than just performing and are actively soliciting donations then that is hypocrisy.
You’ve never heard people complaining that they should use the platform they’ve been given for this or that? Also they do donate typically but I’ve noticed no amount short of every last dollar they have isn’t enough. Even then I am sure somehow someone would be disgruntled.
honestly I haven’t heard those complaints, but I am far removed from the celebrity gossip scene. i only hear the big stories.
i think it would be a good idea for celebrities to provide a service, like a meet & greet or an autograph in exchange for people donating. i still think it’s unbecoming for them to ask for donations without either donating a large amount themselves or giving something in return
I mean I’m not too plugged in either but I feel like I see it about as often as I see complaints like this post. Also they do exactly that or sign and auction items for charity. I would say with their time and proportional to what normal people normally give the celebrities who are involved in philanthropy tend to give more than your average person and yet get scolded for it.
Billy Eilish recently donated 11.5M or about 22% of all of her money. Generally speaking we don’t normally see people donating 20%+ of all of their money and I’m speaking about people who have the capacity to give 20%+. Now I’m sure there will still be people angry at what she chose to donate to or arguing that she didn’t give enough and so on. I personally don’t like people attacking philanthropy short of the charity being a scam. All giving is good and all publicity is good. For worthwhile causes and charities. I would much rather us focus our attention. On scam charities of which unfortunately there are many in this world.
Well except they’re not asking poor people are they? They’re asking everybody. And it’s just an ask. If you don’t want to accommodate the request then you don’t have to, but going on the internet and publicly discouraging people from advocating for the needy just because they’re wealthy is not helping anyone, especially the needy.
If you can’t afford to give then don’t give. The people who give can afford to give
