RED Card

I was at Starbucks this morning, poring over my property assignment and Sixth Amendment cases. I couldn't help but notice, there's currently a promotion at Starbucks where if you "purchase" a Starbucks RED card, Starbucks will donate 5¢ every time you make a purchase with it. This is the AIDS awareness program that Gap, Apple, and other trendy companies like to expound. Basically, it's a gift card, right? No different from any of the other gift cards, but this one comes with a 5¢ donation.

Now, I don't want to belittle or slander Starbucks, because frankly, I can't probably afford any more run-in's with them for fear of being blacklisted. And plus, Starbucks has long had my back as my preferred study/conversation/hang out spot. But I find this RED card odd.

Undoubtedly this is a worthy cause. But it seems to me to be a bit of a cop out on the part of Starbucks. Now, I went on their website and checked out their social responsibility page, and it seems fairly bulky. But basically, with this program, they're transferring any sort of moral culpability onto the consumer. If I were to go up to CEO Howard Schultz and say, "Well, how come you're not giving this amount to the RED campaign?", he could just turn around and say, "Don't blame us, people aren't using their RED cards." It just seems to me to be sort of a lame way to make a philanthropic statement. If you as a company want to make an investment in some sort of charitable cause, make an investment that you can fully stand behind. That seems like a more convincing show of social responsibility. Making your philanthropy that blatantly dependent on others doesn't quite convince me.

I think the best show of corporate social responsibility has to be Target, where 5% of their profit is automatically given back to the community. There's a set goal, a solid commitment of a certain percentage. I think other folks interested in being "socially responsible" should follow that lead.