LETTER: Charity with motives isn’t charity

Alex Tarbet

To the editor:

Chick-fil-A was on campus recently, advertising that a percentage of money paid for sandwiches at a dinner event would go to the American Cancer Society. Genuinely friendly and morally-impelled volunteers asked passersby whether or not they are willing to help people with cancer.

Why complain? After all, it appears to be a win-win situation for Chick-fil-A and for cancer patients. The campaign may help the company recover from its recent morally-charged publicity problems, and the restaurant likely stands to gain by drawing in hungry customers and bolster – not sacrifice – profits. As profits go up, so do donations.

This sounds good, but what are the motivations? Charity by nature is a situation in which someone is motivated to sacrifice for another without expecting self-benefit. To remove this understanding is to rid ourselves of the notion of charity and begin to do something else. It may be good business. It may be economically prudent. It may be a clever marketing strategy – but it is not genuine charity.

But who cares where the money comes from, so long as there’s plenty of it? Imagine someone concerned that she ought to donate. She has $10. She spends $8 on a sandwich; $2 goes to the American Cancer Society. Without sacrificing for the sandwich, she may enjoy the sensation of morality as dessert. This type of marketed morality may say more about the customers than it does about the company.

Following our common definition of an act of charity, the whole $10 may have gone to a foundation with no strings attached. In order to give to cancer research, it is possible to find an organization online and donate to it in minutes in private without having strings pulled by marketers and fast food chains. One of them is the American Cancer Society itself: www.cancer.org.

No sandwiches required.

Alex Tarbet