Charities Upset Over Chase Facebook Contest

ssv03 writes "The New York Times is reporting that Chase Community Giving of Chase Bank recently held a contest on Facebook in which users were encouraged to vote for their favorite charities. At the end of the contest, the 100 charities with the most votes would win $25,000 and advance to the next round to have a chance to win $1 million. Initially, the vote counts for each organization were made public, but two days before voting ended they were hidden, and the final totals have still not been released. While Chase had no official leader board during the voting, several organizations were keeping track of projected winners. Those projections were almost identical to the final results, yet several organizations including Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists. They had been performing very well (some within the top 20) until the vote counters were removed. Chase Bank has so far refused to discuss the issue with the organizations. SSDP has spoken out in a press release (PDF) and is calling for a boycott."

Comments

Re:Nothing outrageous...

[Jojoba86]

As TFA states:

Chase’s eligibility rules make it clear that the bank can disqualify any participant.

Pretty straightfoward really, no lawyer techno-bable there.

Re:Charities?

[CRCulver]

Many organizations in the US that push for policy changes are federally registered as 501c3 charities.

Re:Charities?

[maxume]

It's simpler to refer to 501c as a tax status and leave the charity part off.

Re:Charities?

[ClioCJS]

It's about removing the law that denies student loans for anyone with a marijuana conviction. Because of course taking someone's education away and forcing them to be blue collar isn't exactly the best way to minimize marijuana's impact on people's lives. The wierd thing is is that the punishment/getting caught is far more damaging than the drug itself.

Amex did it better...

[klubar]

American Express (AmEx) did something similar in the Boston area. However, they thought it through first. An organization that wanted to participate had to submit a proposal on what they would do with the money and description of the organization's misson. AmEx selected about 40 (all worthwhile) organizations to vote on. AmEx got a reasonable selection of charities to participate--some of the really large ones, and a few highly specialized. The organizations used their participation to encourage their members to vote and become engaged to the organiztion goals.

I think every organization that was selected got some funding (perhaps at the $1000 level) so there weren't hard feeling from the losers.

Goes to show you that Chase != American Express.

Re:Pro-"Choice"

[linzeal]

As a long time progressive pro-lifer I must say that the type of groups you are talking about to my knowledge have not existed since the 80's. Most pro-life groups I know of that do outreach have people that help with getting a job, getting into school and very often helping with childcare. The last one I volunteered at even had a licensed therapist come in that treated issues like having an abortion, domestic violence and post-partum depression. Show me a Planned Parenthood that does counseling for grief after the abortion, it seems PP is more of the cut and run type when it comes to this issue.

I'm a member of CFI and not bound by any theology, so your blanket statement doesn't apply to me or most of the people I know who work at pro-life groups like Democrats for Life, PLAGAL and other progressive groups or even volunteers at centers that are sponsored by religious organizations.

Re:Charities?

[Arthur Grumbine]

That's the trouble with all anti-abortion groups: they only care about babies being born, after wards, the mother is on her own - even if it means they starve and are homeless. And many of them have the audacity to call themselves Christian.

Your ignorance of the anti-abortion movement is hilarious. My parents/family have (for 20+ years, now) been very involved in supporting multiple organizations in SoCal whose primary concern is taking care of single mothers who choose not to have an abortion - providing a home for them (often for the first couple years), while also helping them find a job, including providing professional skills training and support for taking college courses, as well as paying for food, baby needs, medical expenses, etc. Here's a link to one of them. The website quality is kinda crappy because they spend all monetary donations on supporting the women. But don't let a google search of "home for unwed mothers", or "home for single mothers", get in the way of your hate.

501(c)(3) defined by the IRS

[drew30319]

I run a 501(c)(3) that I formed in 2006. My organization was also in the running for the Chase Contest but was not one of the winners. While disappointed, I'm pleased that Chase undertook this contest using this approach. Generally corporate contests and donations go to the large charities; Chase at least gave us a chance. Following is the IRS information on being a 501(c)(3); note that the first paragraph states "[...]it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities[...]"

Exemption Requirements - Section 501(c)(3) Organizations

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.

Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170.

The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization's net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.

Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.

Hold on

[fyngyrz]

At issue here is their social agenda, not their efficient use of bailout monies.

This is highly reminiscent of when Obama asked for input from Americans for issues they wanted to see addressed; the very highest rated issue was legalization of marijuana and amnesty for those imprisoned or otherwise punished.

So what happened? When the time came to address the issues, Obama laughed it off, literally laughing about it in public, during the program for talking about these issues, and acting like it was "crazy talk."

The people running this country - and you'd better believe that includes the people running the banks and other major players in the financial system, such as the insurance companies - are completely out of touch.

Re:Charities?

[fluffy99]

If that's Chase's policy, they should just explain that and be consistent about it, and far fewer people would be complaining.

Chase did explain their policy, both upfront and after these groups started whining. They simply weren't eligible in the first place and got culled out after the first round of voting. Wikipedia describes SSDP as a "non-profit advocacy group", which is not the same thing as a charity. Below are some relevant quotes from the articles.

Chase opened its contest to any charity whose operating budget was less than $10 million and whose mission “aligned” with the bank’s corporate social responsibility guidelines.
"Chase’s eligibility rules make it clear that the bank can disqualify any participant."

Mr. Evangelisti said the 100 finalists “reflect those organizations that received the most votes among eligible participants.”

Re:Medical use

[Urza9814]

I'm a member of SSDP. I'm also a member of Amnesty International - and I've been with AI much longer, and am much more involved with them - I've worked with the regional office in D.C. on a couple campaigns even. But I don't think it is at all fair to say that Amnesty's cases are any more important than those of groups like SSDP. And even if you think they are, in this specific case Amnesty wasn't one of the organizations SSDP was competing against. Neither was the Red Cross. Or Doctors without Borders. The organizations that _won_ this contest included things like the "Stella Adler Studio Of Acting". Now, I'm not going to get into what organizations are more worthy of the money, but seriously, if it's worth giving to art education programs then surely it can be worth giving to drug education programs as well.

Now, as for SSDP and similar organizations not being worthy in general - it sounds like you are thinking we are NORML or other legalization organizations. We aren't. We are not a "weed pushing organization", we are a drug policy reform organization. Look at cases like University of Michigan student Derek Copp - he was shot, through his lungs and liver by a police officer over what was later described as "a few tablespoons" of marijuana. A _misdemeanor_ offense in the state of Michigan. He nearly died over it. Look at our prisons - how many hundreds of thosands of people are in prison for no reason other than minor drug offenses? These are not violent people, these are people whose crimes are far less severe than those that Amnesty tries to free. I mean honestly, Amnestly works to help people proven guilty of murder in some cases. So what, we should try to save those people, but if your crime is just smoking a joint, you deserve to rot in prison forever for it? SSDP fights to restore financial aid to students convicted of drug offenses. I have a friend, who's extremely intelligent but from a very poor family. He had financial aid covering his entire college expense. And he got caught once smoking weed. Now he's working at McDonald's trying to save up enough money to go back. SSDP works to help people like him. SSDP works to promote _real_ drug education - the amount of people addicted to illegal drugs hasn't changed at all in nearly a hundred years - yet in just a decade, through _education_ not incarceration, we managed to cut the number of people addicted to nicotine (one of the most addictive substances we know of) in half!

So tell me this - why is saving lives lost to drugs not worth anything? Why is providing a good education to good kids not worth anything? Why is keeping nonviolent offenders out of prison not a worthy cause? I mean ok, I can accept you ranking the red cross up there higher than groups like SSDP - I mean they're purely about saving lives. But things like Amnesty International - they are only different from SSDP because of their size. They're both extremely political organizations trying to save the lives and freedoms of people who _they_ feel haven't done anything wrong.