Jewelry and Donations

Posted by Maire Loughran Oct 17, 2007

Lately there seems to be just an abundance of jewelry advertised as having a certain percentage of activity donated to charity based upon sales.

Some companies offer a percentage of sales; some offer a percentage of profits. I find it irritating. What sales or profits exactly? A company can take any percentage and reduce it to zero with an allocation of expenses. And, to boot, the company from which you have made a purchase is also now eligble to take a charitable contribution that rightfully belongs to you.

If you want to support a cause why not just straightup make the contribution to the charitable cause itself? Cut out the middleman and make sure all your money gets to the cause.

Coach is unique in the fact that they actually state how much they will contribute per sales. For each Coach pink watch purchased $100 is being donated to a breast cancer charity. The watches cost $298, which means that Coach is still making a pretty good profit on each watch they sell. However, at least they are not being vague or ambiguous about the amount being donated.