Alexander Ryking

While cause marketing’s takeover of formerly philanthropic efforts can lull consumers into believing that their purchases might make a difference, the philanthro-sales technique sometimes does more harm than good, bringing corporations and social change organizations into a partnership that ultimately compromises organizations’ missions. For example, Komen has been eager to accept corporate funds from the likes of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, but Eli LIlly also happens to be the sole producer of rGBH, a bovine growth hormone which, when it ends up in our dairy products, is known to increase cancer risks. What’s more, while Komen tells their supporters that the foundation’s partnership with the drugmaker is in service of finding a breast cancer cure, Eli Lilly - which also manufactures cancer treatment drugs - might profit from such a cure, or perhaps even prefer that it not be found.

Worse, it appears that Komen has gone one step further to provide cover for corporations. Eli Lilly once manufactured a synthetic estrogen known as DES, which the National Cancer Institute says has led to increased breast, vaginal and cervical cancer risks in both women who took DES during their pregnancy and in their children. “It’s shocking,” says Breast Cancer Action’s Jaggar, “but you go to Komen’s web site, and they list DES, along with underwire bras and abortion, as having no link to breast cancer. They are DES deniers - not doubters, but deniers.”

By bringing corporate interests, donor dollars and organizations working for social good into a tight relationship, cause marketing and attempts at philanthrocapitalism may end up making charities even more dependent on corporate contributions, and risk - as we see with Komen - contradicting charities’ own stated missions. This isn’t a new problem for philanthropy, with its roots in the United States in the industrial monopolies of the last century.

Karl Rove pranced onto Fox “news” to announce his displeasure [with the Chrysler Superbowl ad], saying that the ad was “a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.” The man who helped demonize a legless Vietnam vet said he was “offended.”

What this reaction says is something deeper. See, Clint Eastwood, who voted for John McCain and opposed the bank and car bailouts, thinks the whole controversy is bullshit. He rewrote the script, and he’s donating his pay to charity. What Rove and the rest of the right’s negative reaction really means is that they are divorced from the nation as a whole. In the ad, Eastwood says that, during tough times, “we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one.” We acted, in essence, like Americans.

Conservatives are saying that it’s offensive to expect them to do so. And if Dirty Harry wants to wallow around with the dirty hippies, then fuck him, too.