The world is awash in good causes.  We are constantly being bombarded with messaging about efforts to eliminate and mitigate cancer, Alzheimers Disease, birth defects, strokes, mental illnesses, combat injuries, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, heart diseases, Diabetes, lung diseases, ALS, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, AIDS, drunk driving deaths, Influenza, Nephritis, suicide, and a long list of deadly but much less prevalent “orphan diseases.”    The list goes on and on, and they’re all worthy.

So how do we decide where to invest our limited charitable dollars?  In no particular order, I can think of a lot of good standards to guide such decisions.

1. Kills and harms lots of people.
2.  Isn’t currently attracting sufficient donations.
3.  Affected someone you love.
4.  Is particularly lean and efficient, with limited administrative overhead.
5.  Is a place where you volunteer or have otherwise observed firsthand.

If those reasons are driving your donation decisions, that makes a lot of sense to me. But I can also think of one poor reason for choosing a health-related charity:

1.  Has the most fun, cute or popular promotion.

I have a lot of respect and admiration for the charities behind the ice buckets, pink ribbons, teal shoe laces, red clothing and topless races.  I’m sure they are all doing great work for very worthy causes.  As a public relations professional, I also support and respect the public relations work they are doing to fund their lifesaving work.  If I were in their shoes, I would do the same thing.

But removing my public relations hat, I worry that America is increasingly donating on the basis of who has the most entertaining or in vogue promotion at any given moment, to the exclusion of the thoughtful reasons cited above, or other thoughtful reasons.

Here’s the problem with that:  People who are afflicted by an ailment that lacks a cutesy promotion to attract donors are every bit as deserving of help as the people benefiting from the PR gimmick of the month.  The harsh reality is that when all the money flows in a trendy tidal wave to the cause du jour, people dependent on the non-trendy, cash-starved cause can suffer.

So, there, I said it.  I’m not accepting my well-intentioned friends’ charitable challenges, because I choose my own charities on my own terms with my own priorities and values in mind.

I’m bracing for the indignation that will follow.  Dump ice water on me, strangle me with a pink ribbon or call me a killjoy.  But to be clear, I’m not against those ubiquitous promotions, and I’m not necessarily against giving to the organizations with the trendy promotions. But I am against over-reliance on such promotions for donation decisions.

– Loveland