The Kid mentioned to me the other day: “Mom, did you know Tony the Tiger donates money to keep sports in schools?”
We had a short conversation about it, and I told him I’d look up the details.
Here are the details: you buy a box of Frosted Flakes. You upload your receipt, and Kellogg’s donates $1* to an organization funding school sports. I didn’t look for further details about the organization or what they’re doing—I didn’t think our conversation would be that in-depth.
Did you notice the asterisk? I did, and I had to zoom on my screen to be able to read the fine print.
Max donation is $1M.
So we talked. He was happy about it at first—$1 per box seems pretty good. (We also talked about how sports and sugary cereals don’t really go together.)
But then we talked about the upper limit. And we talked about all the people who could potentially buy the box, thinking they’re donating to school sports, and they’re not.
“But Mom, they’ll stop the commercial [that I saw] once they hit a million, won’t they?”
Well … I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. And we talked a bit about how ads are purchased. (Didn’t even get into nefarious intent, just “we bought two weeks’ worth of ads so they run for two weeks, regardless.”) So they might still be running after Kellogg’s has donated their million.
“That is the crappiest thing I’ve ever heard! Oh my goodness!”
Lesson learned: if we want to donate to a cause, donate to it directly.
