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Apple Donating $1 Million to American Red Cross as Hurricane Florence Makes Landfall in North Carolina

Giving to the Red Cross is just pissing money away. Take a look at their track record for spending your donations. It's not pretty. They are but a shadow of what they were many years ago. Take a look before blowing your money.

Here is a writeup from Slate on the wonderful performance during Katrina, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Harvey. Slate is left-leaning so you think they would be all-in with a charity, but instead they are calling them out.
 
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OldSchoolMacGuy said:
Here come the complaints we always see about how a trillion dollar company could do more. Before complaining, please let us know how much you contributed and how much your company contributed.
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Apple & Cook thank all their wealth & generosity (even if he donated privately...) to customers’ money.
If you feel their capital base to be insufficient, it would be more suitable to start subsidizing them yourself than directing your lower brainwave assumptions to others.
For now I prefer to avoid some other perspectives - e.g, on fiscal avoidance and delinquency, as these would probably go beyond your socio-economic comprehension
 
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gsurf123 said:
Giving to the Red Cross is just pissing money away. Take a look at their track record for spending your donations. It's not pretty. They are but a shadow of what they were many years ago. Take a look before blowing your money.
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Apple's marketing department knows Red Cross means charitable donation to the most uninformed people.
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shareef777 said:
And they don't go around mentioning it.
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Yup. And if it's going to get mentioned by a corporation, shouldn't the announcement be an actual announcement, like 100 million? Otherwise why bother announcing it except for the PR angle.
 
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My wife and I choose to donate a little different when these disasters happen. The local animal shelter where we volunteer at will get us in touch with local animal shelters in areas that need help. It isn't always people and buildings/infrastructure that need help...our furry friends are people too and need help as well!
 
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guzhogi said:
Doesn't Red Cross have a reputation for actually using a fairly small percentage of donation for its actual relief efforts, while most of it goes to administrative costs? If so, that would be my only complaint.
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For fiscal 2017 they received a B+ from Charity Watch. Overhead costs were approximately 11%. So, roughly $72 out of every $100 went directly to the need when including administrative, and miscellaneous costs. While not an A rating, they have made significant improvement in reducing overhead over the past 10 years. :apple:
 
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MacRumors said:



Apple is donating $1 million to the American Red Cross to support Hurricane Florence relief efforts, as it routinely does for natural disasters, according to a tweet shared by Apple CEO Tim Cook today.

hurricane-florence-apple.jpg

Apple often accepts Red Cross donations from customers through the App Store and iTunes Store, but it has yet to add banners to either storefront, or Apple.com. We'll update this article if that changes.

​

Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina earlier today as a Category 1 storm, resulting in destructive winds, rain, and storm surges across the Carolinas and southeastern United States.

Apple most recently accepted Red Cross donations to support wildfire relief efforts in Northern California in August. Last year, Apple donated $5 million to Hand in Hand, in support of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma relief efforts.

Article Link: Apple Donating $1 Million to American Red Cross as Hurricane Florence Makes Landfall in North Carolina
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[doublepost=1536936552][/doublepost]Wow, a whole million from Apple.
 
So depressing reading these comments...Apple donates money to help a worthy cause and makes it a public announcement so that other companies will possibly jump in or to inspire individuals to also make donations and they get ridiculed by people? Sure it's also a PR move but even if they gave $1 it's still more than most of you will ever give. Just amazing that a $1 million donation becomes fodder for hate:(
 
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southerndoc said:
That's like someone donating a penny. Why bother?
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Everyone donating a penny would add up to quite a sum of money. 100 million people donating a penny would be $1M dollars. Apple donating $1M would help quite a number of people. Regardless of their reason, their donation helps.

If I'm stranded in the desert dying of thirst, I'm not gonna complain if someone gives me ONLY a single bottle of water when he's got 1 millions bottles.
 
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Apple is a master of public relations.

After the Red Cross takes their 85% cut for overhead, marketing, and executive bonuses, there won't be much left for the victims, but Apple gets to "feel good" and show everyone how altruistic they are.
 
This is the least they could do, after the last disastrous keynote. I am sure they will earn back the 1M with those 9$ headphone adapters within a few weeks.
 
chumpy34 said:
So depressing reading these comments...Apple donates money to help a worthy cause and makes it a public announcement so that other companies will possibly jump in or to inspire individuals to also make donations and they get ridiculed by people? Sure it's also a PR move but even if they gave $1 it's still more than most of you will ever give. Just amazing that a $1 million donation becomes fodder for hate:(
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Let's not play the hater game. It's just as easy to say, you are hating on people who are rightly critical of a shameless PR grab from the richest company on the planet, using a pitiful amount of money to get its name in the headlines during a tragedy. But I wouldn't say that, because it's your opinion that this is a noble gesture. Just like it's other people's opinion that Apple shouldn't even announce this unless it's an announcement worthy amount. $1 million is hardly showing leadership to other companies.
 
Weaselboy said:
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3277

No they don't... the Red Cross spends about 89% of the money it raises on programs, which is inline with other large charities.
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As pointed out in the Slate article linked above, the number you have referenced doesn't reflect the % that gets delivered in actual services/goods directly to the end recipient. They have a piss poor track record when it comes to big emergencies.

The way I look at it is the Red Cross can say 89% in the same way that a Pharma company can say that it sells a drug for $20 but to you the end recipient it costs $100 due to the middle men and other "program expenses".

"Program expenses" is a pretty vague description if you ask me. I'd like to see that broken out and I'll search the site your referenced to see if they actually do. One thing I learned early on in life is how to lie with numbers from a book that really opened my eyes titled "How to lie with statistics".
 
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Oh my lord! No one has mentioned the tax benefits Apple will get from this so far? :rolleyes:
 
Glideslope said:
For fiscal 2017 they received a B+ from Charity Watch. Overhead costs were approximately 11%. So, roughly $72 out of every $100 went directly to the need when including administrative, and miscellaneous costs. While not an A rating, they have made significant improvement in reducing overhead over the past 10 years. :apple:
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Weaselboy said:
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3277

No they don't... the Red Cross spends about 89% of the money it raises on programs, which is inline with other large charities.
Click to expand...

Okay, thanks. Probably just confusing it with some other charities.
 
iapplelove said:
I know I do. Comes right out of my paycheck set up through my employer. So technically yes I give more than Apple does.
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Thank you for your charitable donations. Recognizing that is far more important IMHO than comparing if you donated more than Apple on a technicality. :)
 
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