Opinion: Chili’s Missteps on Autism Event Highlights Corporate-Giving Problem

A national restaurant chain’s cancellation of an Autism Awareness Month fundraiser Monday because of questions about the intended recipient points up how corporations’ cause-related marketing can produce philanthropic missteps, a Los Angeles Times business columnist writes.

The event was to have channeled 10 percent of receipts from some purchases at more than 1,200 Chili’s outlets to the National Autism Association. The plan triggered a flood of criticism because the association promotes the view that vaccinating children can trigger or worsen autism, a theory medical and scientific researchers say has been thoroughly debunked.

The flap shows that companies engaged in such promotions sometimes “don’t feel much need to scrutinize” their charity partners, the Times’s Michael Hiltzik writes. “Chili’s may merely have thought, ‘Autism Awareness Month = marketing opportunity.’ … Consumers should always be wary of corporate marketing schemes wearing the sheep’s clothing of ‘charity.’”