Companies’ Charity Pledges of ‘Proceeds’ Tell Buyers Little

The New York Times examines companies’ practice of offering a percentage of “proceeds” or “net proceeds” from product sales or event receipts to charity, particularly prevalent in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

An increasingly popular element of cause marketing, such claims often give consumers little concrete information on how much of their spending actually supports the cause in question and have been criticized by some philanthropy monitors, according to the Times.