Been begging
lately? I have.
When I seek donations and
contributions for a small, local animal shelter, I don’t call it begging, but
that’s what is it.
Hard work, begging – especially in
this cold and especially in this economy. Hurricanes and storms have made
a difference this year. Some shelters
are experiencing up to 400% increases in the amount of dogs and cats left
abandoned in foreclosed homes or given up by owners who have lost their jobs.
Sometimes their poor abandoned pets are just tied to the front door when we get
there.
But what really makes finding money
for food and medical treatment for orphaned animals such an uphill climb is the
changed nature of the economic landscape in which we all now live.
The Middle Class is still treading to
survive eight years after the Great Recession. The next great extraction called the Trump Tax
Plan is on the menu.
And if you are non-white, it’s been
even more difficult. Hispanics have lost
nearly 37% of purchasing power as contrasted to whites since 1980.
And African-American families? They’ve lost nearly 200% of purchasing power
in wages (from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability).
There’s not much disposable income
around – especially to help the voiceless & homeless.
The business geography has changed
too.
“Too big to fail” an economic
disaster also means many were too small to survive. While Mom and Pop’s stores struggle to
endure, Big Money gets promised to Big Corporations – like Amazon.
At the shelter, we used to be able to
depend on the many local shops and businesses to provide a few dollars or an
item suitable for a fund raising auction or raffle.
Not so anymore. Not so local
anymore.
What used to be trickle down from our
local mom-and-pop shops is no more. Instead, it has become decidedly
trickle up.
“Hi, I’m from Peoples Animal Welfare
Society in Tinley Park. We’re trying to solicit assistance in any way
from local businesses like yours to help us pay for the thousands of abandoned
animals we vet, feed, care for, and adopt out each year. Would your business,
here in our town, be willing to help?”
“Sorry, you’ll have to go through
corporate for that.”
Corporate will be in Idaho, Minneapolis,
California, or somewhere else usually far away. Maybe even another
country.
And corporate, even in a closer place
like Chicago, usually has a program of giving on a national not local
scale. It’s part of the boardroom budgeting process; FY16 is already in
the hopper. And, honestly, the last Target
(pun intended) for their obligatory corporate giving would be a small, local
shelter.
You see, giving on a national or
international scale provides advertising, which is of value to corporations –
it is revenue generating. Even a thank you from a charity on a corporate
level (like United Way) can assure a full page of company icons and
solicitous appreciation in a newspaper like our Chicago Tribune. In
addition, in the lower corner it will read “With thanks to our media
partner Chicago Tribune.” See, more feel-good advertising.
Of course you won’t believe who makes
this full page spread in the enormous “thank you” and collection of icons in
pages of the Tribune. Here’s a partial list of the 24 corporate
Samaritans fro last holiday season, and I’ll just highlight the companies with
membership in the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago:
Northern Trust, Illinois Tool Works, AT&T, UPS, Deloitte, Exelon, Bank of America,
Ernst & Young, Illinois Blue Cross and Blue Shield,
KPMG, PWC, William Blair, Wells Fargo, GE, Nicor, Allstate, Kelloggs, Sargent and Lundy, HSBC, Harris Associates, Pepsico, Aon, Walgreens, and US Bank.
They all appreciate the spirit of giving on the mammoth scale to national and
international charities because beyond the good citizen-type appearance…well,
it pays back. Helping people is profitable (except when they desire
to bargain collectively). Go to a movie this holiday season, and you'll
see CEO Gregory Marcus pushing United Way as well as popcorn.
And this corporate giving and getting
is a two way street, you know. The CEO of United Way is Brian Gallagher,
whose 2016 reported annual salary is $1,166,355, “plus so many numerous expense
benefits it’s hard to keep track as to what it is all worth, including a fully
paid lifetime membership to 2 golf courses (1 in Canada and 1 in the USA), 2
luxury vehicles, a yacht club membership, 3 major company gold credit cards for
his personal expenses…and so on. This equates to about $0.51 per dollar
of income [going] to charity causes”
In the case of corporations, the
amount of bang for the buck isn’t nearly as important as the public fawning and
media attention that comes with it.
And let’s not forget the connections
or the possibility of playing golf this summer; let’s say in Canada? “Hello,
Brian, maybe I can fly up on your company plane?”
Abandoned animals? How about
abandoned local communities?
Hey, have a great holiday
season. Gotta go untie some dogs.