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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."

23 of 464 comments (clear)

  1. Charities? by Jojoba86 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists

    In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.

    1. Re:Charities? by Culture20 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists

      In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.

      Plenty of anti-abortion groups are about helping and educating pregnant women, not advancing political change. Anti-abortion doesn't always mean anti-choice (as strange as it sounds). The MPP probably believe they're helping glaucoma patients. I don't know what the SSDP does.

    2. Re:Charities? by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm guessing the SSDP wants to protect more fellow students from having their lives destroyed by the insanity of the War on Drugs.

    3. Re:Charities? by dontmakemethink · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Try telling a zealous anti-abortionist they're not helping people in need. That'll go over well.

      Also ask the ~600,000 Americans arrested for possession (not trafficking) of marijuana if new law is or isn't required. That's 600k *annually*.

      --

      War as we knew it was obsolete
      Nothing could beat complete denial
      - Emily Haines
    4. Re:Charities? by Whatshisface · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But coming back to the original point, is that a charity? Just from reading the summary, it seems like all the groups that were removed were activist groups endorsing a specific change in laws. Its one thing to ask Chase to endorse the charity of your choice, its another to ask them to make a political donation to support your pet cause.

    5. Re:Charities? by m.ducharme · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You need an education to be blue-collar these days. Marijuana convictions create a growing class of criminal entrepreneurs, not blue-collar workers.

      --
      Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
    6. Re:Charities? by EsbenMoseHansen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Really? Slavery, abortion and infanticide is all centuries old. Unfortunately only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.

      That has got to be the stupidest argument against abortion I have heard yet. Let me try another triplet. Stoning, religion and castration are all centuries old. Unfortunately, only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.

      --
      Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
    7. Re:Charities? by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seriously, the anti-choice movement is quite evil.

      They believe abortion is murder. They are willing to go all the way to murder of their own if they think it will stop them. They try to distance themselves from the clinic bombers, but rarely do you actually hear full-out condemnation. And yes, they'll lie to stop abortions. But what I think is most horrible is that one of the proven most effective way of stopping abortions is sex ed combined with free available contraception. And the anti-choice people object to that. That makes then not pro-life, but evil anti-choice people that do not have the best interests of children at heart, but want to push their personal and religious beliefs on others against their will in a manner that they know harms others. It's not lying to prevent murder that makes them evil. It's lying to cause the situations that cause abortions, then calling abortion murder.

      The few principled ones who want to stop abortions and think abortion is murder usually end up pro-choice because they realize that pro-choice pushes education and doesn't push abortions. They realize that making it illegal will still result in abortions, but that the illegal ones jeopardize not just the baby's life but the mother's as well, and they realize that a parent that wants to kill their kid before the child is even born may not be the best environment for the child, and that aborting this one so the next, when the time is right, will have a family ready to receive it and a better life is the best thing for all involved (and of course, the hind sight to realize that education and contraception would have prevented the whole situation).

    8. Re:Charities? by amilo100 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You'd like to think that individuals who are opposed to preventing unwanted children would be standing in line for the opportunity to adopt such children and raise them in a loving environment.

      I know many people who are adopted (and who adopted children themselves). Adoption is never easy (and it is a lifelong commitment). And yeah, the only orphanage in my town is run (and funded) by one of those evil churches who are opposed to abortion.

  2. Non-embarassing charities by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obviously Chase meant the top "non-embarassing to a big company" charities. Can you imagine if Chase had to donate $1M to the Marijuana Policy Project? I'm sure the board freaked out at the thought of "chase" and "MJ" being in the same sentence and said, "do whatever is necessary to make sure we don't get that association."

    --
    stuff |
  3. So disqualify them... by tomhath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wouldn't have a problem if Chase had declared an organization ineligible, but that's not what they did. Instead they wimped out and hid the vote tallies, probably blocking votes to organizations that those running the contest don't support, without even saying who or why they were disqualified.

  4. Marketing, not charity by xzvf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reason a corporation give money to a charity isn't because it believes in the charity, but because it will get a blurb in paper saying how good they are and increase the brand good will. Does anyone really expect a corporation to spend $25000 so it can be on the news with a headline "Chase supports legalizing Drugs". I won't even get to the quagmire around abortion. I'm sure if they do this again, they'll pre-screen organizations that are allowed to participate. Frankly I'd been more concerned if they screened out an organization that helps people get out of credit card debt.

  5. Like Darth Vader said: by kurt555gs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " I am altering the deal, pray that I do not alter it any further ".

    Banks, Ugh!

    --
    * Carthago Delenda Est *
  6. Re:Nothing outrageous... by Aladrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And as others are saying, they -should- have disqualified them, instead of changing the game mid-stream and hiding things. The hiding is why people are -really- mad right now.

    Don't get me wrong, the pro-MJ people would be pissed either way... But now -everyone- is pissed instead.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  7. Re:Pro-"Choice" by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Like anything, both sides are filled with extremist assholes.

  8. Re:Nothing outrageous... by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Remove them from the beginning rather than letting them think they have a chance.

  9. Re:Good for Chase. by evanbd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And the thought of people's lives being ruined over doing something that did no harm to anyone doesn't sicken you?

  10. Re:Good for Chase. by quarrelinastraw · · Score: 5, Insightful
    there are other human being starving and dying and suffering

    Yeah, like the many people dead or wounded due to gang violence fueled by the street drug trade, or the many people addicted to drugs who can't get medical or treatment help because they will get arrested or simply ignored, the people dying in Afghanistan and Iraq due to terrorist groups funded largely by the heroin trade.

    I could go on, but you're an idiot if you think the current US policy toward narcotics doesn't cause starving, dying and suffering.

    People who think caring about drug policy is for bong-toting fratboys sicken me.

  11. Re:Pro-"Choice" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Like anything, both sides are filled with extremist assholes.

    When pro-choicers start threatening, murdering and blowing up clinics that refuse to carry out abortions, then you may have a point...

  12. Re:Nothing outrageous... by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I dont need to see a disclaimer to form my opinion here.

    Chase is donating 3.5 million bucks to charities, and the result is a bunch of fucking assholes with the nerve to bitch and complain about how they are doing it.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  13. Re:Good for Chase. by DavidTC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It actually makes much more sense to complain and try to fix things where society is proactively hurting people than when society is just ignoring people or where some natural problem is.

    I mean, an organization trying to figure out why someone is homeless is hard. Getting them off street is hard, as is making sure someone just doesn't show up to take their place.

    Likewise, curing a disease is hard. We can spend millions on research that doesn't go anywhere.

    Compares to those, not locking people up for drug us and not spending money to do so is incredibly efficient. We don't actually have to solve some biological or social problem. We just have to stop doing something.

    It's like, if your house is falling apart, due to termites, random vandals, water damage...and a guy you're paying to run around punching holes in the wall with a sledgehammer.

    Which problem are you going to address first to fix your house? I dunno about you, but I'd get the sledgehammer guy to stop, even if the other problems are 'worse' in some objective sense of how damaged your house is.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  14. Re:Pro-"Choice" by geekboy642 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, please do invent the absolute worst kinds of inhumane treatment to prove that women must have no control over their own bodies. A shockingly vast majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester, and if you can make out an expression on a fetus that's less than 12 weeks old, you've got an imagination too vivid to be anonymously yelling on the internet. Of the vanishingly small percentage of abortions that are performed when the baby has passed the normal age of viability, the vast majority of those are performed to save the life of the mother, or to prevent the infant from having a short, brutish, and pointless life. The misogynistic organizations are attacking a strawman that was never relevant in the slightest.

    The abuses you've imagined are not because a mother suddenly decided, two weeks before her due date, that she didn't want a baby. Late term abortions are performed to save lives and limit suffering. We find it sane to put down a dog that's been grievously injured, but for some reason ending the suffering of a child born without a brain is some gross unjust cruelty, and you somehow believe that a child cursed to die before their first birthday should be forced to live through a year of brutish suffering, rather than being given the only kindness we have.

    Finally, statistics demonstrate that women will still get abortions, regardless of how stringent the theocracy is that you place them under. Legalized abortions mean fewer women die. Which do you want, brassy moral superiority and thousands of women dead, or an unpleasant feeling and those women still alive? That's the only 'choice' offered.

    --
    Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
  15. Re:Hold on by Stormwatch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.