Is shopping a reasonable response to human suffering?

Recent news about the Red campaign (see the March 26th issue of Macleans) questions the effectiveness of fundraising through specially branded corporate products. Red was launched with great fanfare in January 2006, as a great way to get consumers to fight AIDS in Africa, by having corporation donate a percentage of profits from distinctly Red product to the Global Fund. While advocates, like Bono and Oprah Winfrey, sell Red as a triple win scenario for charities, corporations and shoppers; the tactic has produced a backlash by those who feel Red lacks transparency. Some such as Ben Davis, the cofounder of a website called buylesscrap.org, do not feel that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering, and believe that people should be encouraged to give their money directly to charities.

Red’s CEO Bobby Shriver responds: “I think it’s thrilling if it (people giving directly to charity) would happen in the real world.” He says. “But I wonder if any of those guys who set up the website had ever donated to the Global Fund or even heard of it prior to Red.”

Shriver may be right that large scale consumer driven marketing campaigns like RED can effectively raise very general awareness about an issue but he should be careful about selling Red as an efficient or transparent way to give to charity. The danger is that consumers come away feeling that they have done their part and appeased their guilt without doing anything other than buying a red cell phone or pair of shoes. I wonder how many purchasers of empowe(red) gap t-shirts could even tell you that money from their purchase was going to the Global Fund.