Yves here. I must confess to being glad that the Conversation addressed a pet peeve, the way it’s become too common for checkout systems, particularly in grocery and drug stores, to ask that you donate to some pet cause and typically offer a choice of dollar amounts. It’s meant to make you look Scrooge-y in front of the cashier if you don’t participate. It’s too bad the researchers asked only a small sample. It would be nice if their negative findings could be seen as more definitive.
I took an early dislike towards this sort of thing because big name recognition, lousy at actually distributing money “charities” like Red Cross and United Way were heavily represented when this scheme first got going.
Another reason I am not keen about this sort of pressured giving is that the donor does not have the time to check if the not-for-profit is well run. I have some I give to regularly in pet interest areas and I’m pretty confident they are low overhead and execute well.
The one sort of exception to my personal rule was that the New York grocery chain D’Agostino had a period of time every year (IIRC two weeks) where the checkout staff would ask customers if they’d round up and effectively give their change to one of the good local charities, CityMeals on Wheels, which brings food to the home-bound elderly. It didn’t hurt that I already gave to them. But D’Agostino, a family-run business, also gave the impression that it had a long-standing relationship with CityMeals, which made the ask seem less impersonal.
I thought rounding up was a lot less demanding ask that some other ways of asking for money. And D’Agostino would then report in the stores via banners after the campaign how much they had raised. You never get reports like that on those checkout screen demands.
By Na Young Lee, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Dayton and Adam Hepworth, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Ohio University. Originally published at The Conversation
The Big Idea
Asking customers to support a cause when they pay for stuff can heighten their anxiety. Contrary to the common belief that shoppers feel good about making donations at checkout, we have found that there is a downside to such charity campaigns.
For our study, co-authored with Alex Zablah, we researched how customers respond to donation requests made by cashiers or automated checkout kiosks.
We interviewed 60 shoppers, asking them to describe what they felt when they were asked to donate while ringing up their purchases at a variety of retailers based on their recollections of that interaction. About 40% of the words that these customers used expressed negative feelings associated with anxiety such as “pressured,” “annoyed” and “concerned about being judged.” Another 7% of the words conveyed other negative sentiments, including “guilty” or “bad.” The rest were neutral, such as “indifferent.”
Only about 20% of the words participants in these interviews used to describe their feelings were positive, such as “nice” or “compassionate.”
We also conducted a series of online experiments, in which a total of 970 people took part.
All of them were prompted to imagine that they were making a purchase, either at a fast-food drive-through or a grocery store. Half were also instructed to picture being asked to donate to a charity during checkout. The results were consistent with our findings from the interviews. Participants in the groups involving a charitable solicitation experienced more anxiety than those who only had to focus on making a purchase.
We also found evidence that this anxiety can be relieved when customers agree to donate, but only when the solicitation comes from a cashier, as opposed to an automated request made by a computer or self-service checkout machine.
Why It Matters
U.S. checkout charity campaigns raised US$605 million for assorted causes in 2020, with many donations totaling just a few cents.
Businesses that hold checkout charity campaigns collect their customers’ donations. They do not receive direct financial benefits, such as tax deductions, for raising money for local food banks or other causes.
Retailers and restaurants may expect customers to see them in a more positive light because of their engagement in charitable activity, and there’s been some evidence to that effect.
But our study indicates that for many shoppers the results could be the opposite. For that reason, retailers and restaurants may want to weigh the risks before deciding to participate in these campaigns.
In particular, they may want to avoid asking shoppers to take part in checkout charity campaigns at self-checkout kiosks – where machines make the ask, instead of human beings.
What Is Not Known
We didn’t look into why checkout charity might undercut a retailer’s popularity. It’s possible that asking shoppers to donate in front of others makes them feel pressured. Or perhaps they may simply not want to chip in and feel annoyed when the cashier asks them.
We also did not assess whether customers know that businesses are not allowed to claim dollars donated by their customers as tax deductions.
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AT LAST someone is taking aim at this institutional panhandling. I hated it from the first time it ever showed up in my life when my local chain grocery asked me to support a Catholic anti-abortion movement. If you refused, you were assumed to be in favor of slaughtering babies and probably dining on them.
The most annoying part is that the cashiers are forced to perform this humiliating exercise of customer harassment as a condition of their employment.
Similar stories down in Florida. You’re Supposed to feel guilty by saying No, in front of everyone.
Another dislike… have you noticed when you are at a food counter, you collect you food items yourself, on a tray, some employee at checkout shows you the confirm screen where I can select 1 of 3 suggested ‘Tips’. Why would I tip a collective ’employee’ for collecting my own self-service food..? I see this more at airports now…
I’m part of the PMC so anytime I see a request to tip I do it regardless if it seems appropriate or not. There aren’t enough opportunities to spread the wealth to the hardworking underpaid.
I guess that I will be the first to mention that South Park talked about this ‘donation’ tax. And of course we read several weeks ago how some places were adding a donation for the Ukraine on their bills. If you donated money and found out that it was all going to the Red Cross you would not be a happy camper as you know their track record with donations-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KT9IUd_Cnc (3:37 mins)
I hadn’t seen that one! God that’s brilliant.
My biggest issue with it is that these corporations collect the money and distribute it as they see fit, and they get the deduction from it and the positive PR for the act. I just get to pay more at the register. If these companies want to donate to charity they’re more than welcome to use some of the money I give them to do it. Just leave me out of it.
I know a guy who worked for red cross and retired on a $200k pension which he is very proud to brag about every time we meet.
Charity like evth else is a business in this country.
I’m currently working for the Red Cross. I don’t doubt you but it probably also needs to be said that all the (probably more junior) colleagues I work with are a very conscientious bunch on below market salaries!
I agree that a larger sample would have been interesting together with a dis+aggregation of human versus machine interaction. It must be easier to hit a button to decline rather than engage with the cashier. Just speculating, of course.
Never seen this happen in Europe, but frequently hotel chains will add a small amount to your bill for the benefit of some charity or other, usually without asking you. This would drive me nuts in pre-COVID days when I was still travelling for business, since it would cause the bill to be rejected. So either you catch it at checkout and have to spend the time getting a new bill – or you miss it and have to contact the hotel chain afterwards to make the correction. Gah!
What you call “Checkout Charity” I call “Electronic panhandling”. It is not common in Austin, TX but here in the DC area it is pervasive, with the added wrinkle that the same chain will have different stores list different charities. Military charities for one while others get immigration, Afro-American and even ecological- all pandering to the local virtue signal.
I’m annoyed enough about this that I’m thinking about printing-up small stickers to stick on the screens saying “Stop Electronic Panhandling” with a web address to buy a roll of 100. On unmanned checkout lines there will be nobody there to hear the machine scream; on the manned ones pay in cash. Then let the company send a clerk out with some Windex to remove the stickers, which will make the register unreliable until the sticker is gone.
If confronted with the “We can call the police” just start shooting video with your phone while saying “But this is a peaceful demonstration- is your company (name goes here) opposed to that? This is going up on Youtube.” I might even have a Youtube channel for uploads.
We must strangle this baby in the crib before it can multiply.
Give them an electronic penny. The administrative costs would soon bankrupt them and begin to put an end to that nonsense.
What annoys me is that the donation will appear to have come from the retailer not from me. They get the PR credit but the money didn’t come out of their profit.
Screw them. If I want to give, I’ll give.
When asked if I want to round up for charity, I always wanted to respond “how about we round down and the company make the contribution?” I’m betting that would be a big, fat “NO”.
I like your approach.
I am actually shocked to learn that the company doesn’t get to take the tax deduction. All this time, I thought that’s why they were doing this.
So, I need to find the article, but my understanding is that they can do it if the state they’re in allows it. Regardless of whether they do get the deduction, they get to direct the money and complete the donation at a time of their own choosing, and they’re under no obligation to tell you when that might be. Also, I’m aware that some charities PAY THE STORES to hold the charity campaigns at the register. There are so many reasons to not participate in those checkout mugging.
Now, what I do participate in, because it is treated differently for tax purposes, is when a store is doing something like “X% of sales go to…” those deals are different. I don’t mind contributing.
Chris,
I was wondering if the charities pay the store a kickback – I guess they do! It seems like a win-win for both the charity and the store.
Glad to know I’m not the only one with this pet peeve. I never donate at the check stand and I find it irritating to be asked. I have groups I donate to privately where I know that the money will be going to really help.
I’m going to add to pet peeves the charities that send me greeting cards (especially Xmas cards!) with their requests for money. Eight more showed up yesterday from St. Joseph’s Indian School; they’re usually on the leading edge of the many more such packets from various charities to follow before year’s end. Those eight were added to the stack in the closet bringing the height up to around 4″.
Hallmark must hate them.
I figure they’re working percentages, since it is often forgotten the Scrooge-before-redemption was a penny-pinching skinflint and would have sent no money at all in exchange for the cards he hadn’t asked for… but the psychology is spot on, I can’t bear to throw them into recycle and so the stack of cards grows and looks increasingly like I’m hoarding them… doh!
As it is I stopped buying boxes of cards and sending them out years ago as our circle of friends and family got smaller and smaller, via death, dis-memberment, unfriending, and blocking. Eight ought to get the job done this year, and when they arrive I imagine they’ll last about as long as their cards do in this house.
Throwing out other people’s cheap charity cards is a lot easier on an overworked holiday conscience.
They had my mother on their list. It took quite a bit of doing, but I got her name removed from the St. Joseph’s Indian School mailing list and about 70 others.
Charities, my foot. They’re engaging in elder abuse, and I don’t like that. Not one bit.
People might not realize you can donate unused cards to a thrift store. Many will sell them for a nickel or whatever, so people can minimize their holiday budgets as well as choose the exact cards they like.
Fantastic, Earthling! I didn’t know and I have old partial boxes I haven’t used up as well. I used to exchange unused cards with my neighbor so we each got “new” cards every year, but she moved to another city.
we are all little more than walking wallets these days
It’s been several months since I’ve been asked to “round up for Ukraine.”
I think everyone realized what the game was when the feds started coming in with a string of hefty aid packages.
Sometimes shame kicks in when the scam gets THAT obvious.
I don’t understand the citation that allegedly shows that this is not a tax benefit for the corporation, implying that they can’t deduct the donations. The cited Brookings blog post states that corporations “generally can deduct charitable gifts up to 10 percent of their taxable income in a given year. But perhaps the TikTok creator thinks corporations are dodging taxes when they reduce their taxable income by contributing to charities.” I see it as funding their tax deduction even if it also benefits the charity.
I say to the cashier that their $20,000,000 / year CEO should donate all the money he wants.
Stop exaggerating!
Only $8.5 Million for Safeway’s CEO.
As a clerk at a very popular shipping store, I hate this with the heat of 1000 suns. Before a customer can proceed with cash or card, it asks about donation to charity. I think it’s something to support Junior Achievement. Stops the transaction in its tracks until they answer. I always say press this button for no. It is a total scam. The company gets the write off of other people’s money, the credit, and a burnishing of their corporate image.
The store beg I hate the most is donating to hospitals.
I always wondered if the employees receive some type of incentive for the donations received from their register. I would imagine the store knows the time which checker was on each register because the checker has to login with his/her login in when they start their shift.
this anxiety can be relieved when customers agree to donate, but only when the solicitation comes from a cashier, as opposed to an automated request made by a computer or self-service checkout machine.
When and where does this happen? I had a cashier ask outloud the other day and it was miserable for both of us.
This type of begging really pisses me off!
Some mega corporation that makes billions in profit asking me to donate to a charity after raising prices by about 30% this year.
I amuse myself by imagining CEO Magazine, where these ideas are circulated to the select, and the CEO subscribers with nothing really to do but read magazines, then roll out the plans they read about in the magazine. “How to Burnish Your Corporate Image, and Benefit Your Bottom Line at the Same Time” (hat tip to 10leggedshadow)
…”Johnson, get to work on this right away”…”yes, sir!”..,
Then the smart CEO gets to present the initiative, and bask in praise at the annual board meeting.
You can readily spot these ideas. My employer takes a survey of all company employees each year asking them how much they give to charity and how much time they donate to public service, in order to sum up what a charitable and giving company we are, collectively. Sound familiar? I’m sure the CEO got the idea from reading CEO Magazine.
If i’m paying cash, i’ll sometimes proactively hit up the cashier for a charity discount, if the previous customers in front of me are harassed in such a fashion.
My husband usually does the shopping now, but when I did go to the store I always politely declined. I mostly donate to the local humane society and I want the tax receipts.
Yves, I concur: rounding up is a much better ask, particularly in these days of rampant food price inflation. And a locally owned business asking that customers if they would like to round up, and asking only for a short period annually to support a reputable local charity, is very smart.
Actually, rounding down would get close to a 100% acceptance rate.
Somewhat related is being asked to select a tip amount when using a card to pay for something at the local coffee shop. It seems obligatory to tip someone just to get you a coffee and croissant to go….so now I pay cash and drop my change into the jar.
They want a tip for doing their job as cashier not as a server.
On donation requests, I once told the cashier at Macy’s (where I encountered the donate to breast cancer when paying by credit card) that only 50% goes to the charity with the other 50% to the middlemen. He corrected me – he said only 15% goes to the charity.
Sometimes I wonder if the stores keep the donations.
These are usually multi-billion dollar corporations that are doing the “asking”. If the corporation thinks the charity is so important, then let them donate a substantial portion of their profits to it. But no – instead they think YOU should donate.
I don’t know about tax deductions, but I’m confident these companies make money on the float, while they are holding the donations.
I also find the Kroger “buy a pre-selected bag of our store brand groceries” at full retail, to give the foodbank very annoying.
Safeway seems to be a big offender based on my experience shopping there. Trader Joe’s doesn’t pester customers. Costco pesters only to upgrade your membership. I don’t recall that Sprouts pesters. I’ve never been pestered at CVS.
The CEO of Safeway, (Albertson’s) only makes $8.5 million.
He can donate for his customers.
https://www.execpay.org/news/albertsons-companies-inc-2020-compensation-4587
During the Iraq war I was pestered by CVS to financially support the troops. I believe the Iraq war cost the American taxpayers around 7 trillion dollars? Whenever asked I would politely ask the cashier to have CVS ask the pharmaceuticals for the money. I imagine pharmaceuticals made lots of money from the Iraq war.
Was interested in your comment about how big name charities are great at getting donations and poor at disbursing them.
I saw a great example after the biblical level bushfires in Australia in 2019.
The Red Cross received mega truckloads of donations. Then a huge sign advertising ……. The Red Cross… appeared in the main shopping mall where I live. Wouldn’t have been cheap to do.
And it stayed up all through 2020 while the bushfire refugees, living in tents and caravans and on couches, complained about receiving precisely nothing from the big charity.
No. The simple, best answer. The more you say it, the easier it gets. Tipping is out of control. I will not be guilted into tipping at Von’s for a Childrens Hospital, many of which have large endowments. The only place I tip is when I can see people busting their ass for a quality experience or quality food. Local burrito and pizza places fall in this category.
Chains never do.
yeah, tipping has definitely gotten out of hand today which is why I rarely go out to eat these days. Now, the default option at the top of the machine for tipping is usually 15%! God only ever asked for 10%…
What should be done is to pay servers a livable wage instead of trying to guilt trip the customer into doing it
“What should be done…” A lot of things should be done, including jailing executives for violating labor law when workers try to form a union to negotiate a living wage.
Meanwhile, in actually existing capitalism, service workers in jobs where our society has expected tips to be part of income for decades still depend on them to pay the rent, feed their kids and go to the doctor. I loathe the checkout charity scam, but you get offered tip options because without the offer, service workers’ incomes would have collapsed in the shift from cash and old fashioned credit card slips to swiping and chips.
Tipping is “out of hand?” You know what’s out of hand? The fact that the minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had kept pace with productivity since the early 1960s, and that real median wages in this country have been flat for decades. Most food servers make close to or, in most states that still allow it, well below minimum wage in cash wages. The feds still allow servers to be paid a munificent $2.13 an hour on the expectation of tips. That food service counter worker who you’re asked to consider tipping makes on average 13-14 bucks an hour, and they’re lucky to get full time hours. Forget health care.
So please keep doing all the really wonderful things you’re doing to force employers to pay workers a living wage. But until we win that fight, tip the workers who depend on it for their living, and yes, 15% is the basic expectation.
If the employees get the tips…
Thank you for that explanation of the double-standard minimum wage system in the US, where servers get paid a ridiculously low wage and must rely on tips received to bring it up to the state minimum wage. The NYT has an article this morning: The Battle over Wage Rules for Tipped Workers is Heating Up.
Like the NYS legislature recently declaring that agricultural workers must by paid overtime after 40 hours, rather than after the currently mandated 50 hours, any move to change a system that routinely exploits low wage workers will fought against by employers who declare that they ‘can’t afford’ to pay a livable wage.
In restaurants we write “Cash” in the tip line and hand that to the server.
We subtract that from the bottom line on the bill if they already include it. “Oh, we gave that to them directly.”
Sometimes we have to chase them down and shove it into their hands. Never let it go through management.
The Tax Policy Center article was informative – I was not aware that the companies could not just claim those deductions as their own, but instead leave it to the shopper to deduct them on their own taxes. However, that still leaves me with questions that aren’t easy to answer:
– The obvious question, which Yves addresses – how good, actually, are the charities that are being donated to? I know Wounded Warrior got in some trouble a while back because less than 50% of funds were going to the stated mission.
– When exactly, does the corporation donate the money? Upon receipt? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Yearly? If it takes a while, what are they doing with the money in the meantime? If they make a decent chunk of change (interest or otherwise) on the money being held, are they declaring that as income? Are they donating that as well, and reducing their actual taxable income?
– If they had charitable donations prior to electronic panhandling becoming commonplace, have they continued donating at the rate they were previously (treating this an additional amount coming directly from their customers)? Or have they just stopped donating, leaving it to the customers, and figuring the PR from the donations was good enough?
All of this requires way more research than I want to do with the little free time I have. I’m not convinced that most of these major charities aren’t just cushy jobs for elites that quickly turn to self-perpetuation. I’ll get nasty looks sometimes when I don’t donate (I don’t go into rationale…I just don’t bother), and even my family at times has problems understanding. I’ll occasionally try to give an example (forgive my flippancy on a serious topic, but I use it as a way to illustrate):
Look at Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). They were started because of horrendous tragedies due to drunk driving. They brought a spotlight to an issue that needed addressing, and arguably, had their greatest success in helping to enact the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984 (per Wikipedia). They’ve since expanded to other countries, which I have no issue with.
But what about now, in the US? Far as I can tell, it’s illegal to drink and drive in all 50 states, and there’s no danger of those laws going away any time soon. Their accomplishments since then have been good, from what I can see on Wikipedia, but the longer the org exists, the more it starts to seem like busywork, or worse, an excuse to increase funding to a bloated law enforcement bureaucracy –
(Wikipedia)
MADD released its first “Rating the States” report, grading the states in their progress against drunk driving, in 1991. “Rating the States” has been released four times since then.
In 1999, MADD’s National Board of Directors unanimously voted to change the organization’s mission statement to include the prevention of underage drinking.[20]
In 2002, MADD announced its “Eight-Point Plan”. This consisted of:
Resuscitating the nation’s efforts to prevent impaired driving.
Increasing driving while intoxicated (DWI)/driving under the influence (DUI) enforcement, especially the use of frequent, highly publicized sobriety checkpoints.
Enacting primary enforcement seat belt laws in all states.
Creating tougher, more comprehensive sanctions geared toward higher-risk drivers.
Developing a dedicated National Traffic Safety Fund.
Reducing underage drinking.
Increasing beer excise taxes to the same level as those for spirits.
Reinvigorating court monitoring programs.[21]
In a November 2006 press release, MADD launched its ‘Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving’: this is a four-point plan to eliminate drunk driving in the United States using a combination of current technology (such as alcohol ignition interlock devices), new technology in smart cars, law enforcement, and grass roots activism.[22]
(/Wikipedia)
The problem itself won’t go away completely, and punishment for DUI is pretty severe. Why do they still exist in the US, other than to give connected people jobs?
I fear that’s the end game for most big charities. I sometimes wonder what would happen if the charities remained tax-exempt, but giving to them was no longer deductible. Would the sinecures disappear?
I give selectively now (NC included), regardless of deductions. It’s all I can do.
It’s right up there with one of my pet peeves: ‘suggested’ tips on the VISA terminal, many of which are obviously decoys – ‘do you want to give 15%, 20 %, …35%’ ?
Regarding electronic panhandling, I feel no stress whatsoever and thus, a simple, nope does it. And for what it’s worth, it’s my sense the person running the register is inured to it, and if we’re being honest, their sentiment toward me and my charity, or lack thereof, is a question of little concern.
I’m of two minds. Nothing made me prouder as a Canadian than Safeway collecting for Tsunami relief for Thailand on Boxing Day 2004. But on our recent returns to Canada it seems like they do it everywhere, which is tiresome. Philanthro-Grifterism.
When asked I reply “What kind of country is this, where [children with cancer] have.to beg for medical attention?”
My routine answer when asked ‘do I want to contribute …..’, is “No. I’d like for large corporations to do their own donating.” If I’m having a bad day I add “instead of hitting up poor people in dollar stores struggling to stretch their budget for more money”. Cashiers seem to understand/agree. I don’t think they like doing this asking any more than they liked asking if people wanted fries with that.
As if someone doing stocking, cleaning, cashiering, pricing, etc. at a dollar store needs the additional task and anxiety of asking people for donations.
Gee, and people don’t want to work at these crappy jobs, I guess they are all lazy, right?
Screw that! I take these interactions, whether automated or the clerk asking, as an opportunity to broadcast progressive messages to the clerk and everyone else within earshot.
For example:
“Do you want to donate to our veterans?”
“WE JUST SENT 80 F’ING BILLION TO THE CORRUPT SHITHOLE OF UKRAINE, THE PENTAGON SHOULD PAY FOR OUR VETERANS! WHY SHOULD WE PAY A SECOND TIME?
At Whole Foods
“JEFF BEZOS MAKES $190,000 EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY, AND HE WANTS ME TO DONATE TO A CHARITY?”
Grins all around…:-)