Last week I wrote a post about a charity event being held at many Boston Pizza locations on Monday night. The pizza chain was going to donate $5 from every medium or large pizza sold that night to relief efforts in the Philippines. I was ready to eat pizza for a good cause but found out that the money raised was possibly going to World Vision, an organization with religious ties. I contacted the Boston Pizza Foundation for clarification on the matter. They kindly responded today with the following:
Hello Erwin,
After careful consideration and collaboration with some of our global partners on the ground, we decided to direct donations to World Vision for two reasons:
1) we have been informed that they are having the most impact on the ground in the hardest hit regions.
2) donations to Red Cross cannot be specifically directed to a specific cause or project. Monies donated get divided by Red Cross at their discretion.
We take these decisions very seriously and always look to where we’ll have the biggest impact. Thank you for your question and we look forward to seeing you at your local BP.
The reply mentions the Red Cross since I used them as an example alternate charity which was secular but still involved with the relief efforts. I respect their decision. I don’t have all the information they might have so if they decided this was the best possible use of the money raised, that’s their right. I, however, also have the right to choose where my money goes as well, so I made the decision not to join in on this event.
I instead chose to donate money to Direct Relief, one of the highest rated charity organizations in North America. With Direct Relief, you can choose where your money goes to and they have very specific outlines of where the typhoon relief money goes to.
Make no mistake, I applaud Boston Pizza for their generosity in organizing the event in the first place. As a corporate entity, they were not obligated to do anything like that. I hope they will continue their generosity in the future.
I ask you to donate money to the charity of your choice as well.