June 4, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
A contributor to The GiveWell Blog says people should remember that corporations are not people—and do not have the same obligations to give to charity.
“A corporation is a legal entity whose sole purpose is to provide particular goods or services,” writes Holden Karnofsky, a co-founder of GiveWell, a group that analyzes the effectiveness of nonprofit groups for donors.
Every penny that a corporation gives to charity is one that it could have given to shareholders, he argues.
“Those are people as capable of giving to charity as any other people”—and they are better off using their own judgment than being stuck with charities that a corporate social-responsibility committee designates, he adds.
A socially responsible company, broadly, is “a company that uses only what it pays for and charges only for what it provides,” he concludes.
Do you agree that companies should stick to business and not give money to charity? Share your thoughts by clicking on the comments link below this posting.
