Porn And Weed Business Philanthropy Spurned On ‘Moral’ Grounds

Successful businesses have a long history of becoming good corporate citizens—or at least trying to appear that way—via philanthropy, setting up charitable arms specifically to advance worthy causes, and the companies’ own reputations, with cash donations. But two major businesses in the United States have found themselves treated not as heroes or even good citizens for their philanthropy, but as pariahs. Those two industries, according to a new report by the tech business magazine Fast Company, are porn, and pot. “Instead of leveraging the massive weight of these designated ‘vice’ industries,” write Fast Company journalist Steve Steck, “for the most part, society still views them as unworthy of sharing the same air-space as family-friendly brands, let alone social purpose.” Pornhub in 2012 attempted a fundraising effort that would benefit the leading breast cancer awareness charity, the Susan G. Komen Foundation. But as NBC News reported at the time, the Komen organization reacted with horror at the very idea of accepting money from an online porn company. “We are not a partner, not accepting donations, and have asked them to stop using our name,” the charity said in a statement. And yet just two years earlier, the Komen foundation had happily partnered with the fast food fried chicken chain KFC for a promotion expected to raise $8.5 million by selling pink, Komen-branded buckets of the company’s chicken breasts—even though the high fat and sodium content of KFC food has been shown by research to contribute to causing cancer. Pornhub also created a college scholarship program, offering a $25,000 scholarship to the student whose essay best reflected the theme,  “How do you strive to make others happy?”  But that led to a backlash from the anti-porn group The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which condemned the program as a “blatant attempt to exploit economically vulnerable young people, and to further normalize the porn industry, which causes neurological and psychological harms to both its ‘performers’ and viewers.” Cannabis growers have found similar scorn when they attempt to turn their revenues into social good. According to Fast Company, the American Cancer Society and the Children’s Hospital Foundation have each rejected donations from Organa Brands, which is believed to be the largest legal pot grower in the world. “Judgment is futile,” Steck concluded. “Let consumers be rewarded for our vices. Because, right now, the only thing preventing more social good in the world is our own hypocrisy.” Photo By Jericho/Wikimedia Commons