Why "Buy One, Give One" Companies Don't Help Anyone

This has been coming up more and more lately in my conversations with people. I think it flares up around the holidays because people are generally in a giving spirit (or at least in the mindset of gift-giving even if they don't want to) and conversations sometimes go down the slippery slope of talking about the benefits of charities and companies-run-like-charities.

This Adam Ruins Everything video unfortunately tags Toms shoes as the example here, but there are plenty of companies that do stuff like this -- essentially "donating" one of whatever you buy to a community in need. I don't generally like to put these companies down because I think even misaligned giving can be good, but there are some good points here about taking a pause before purchasing and maybe, just maybe, not buying something and instead just giving to a proper charity that can use the funds wisely. Ultimately, it's your money. It reminds me of this other holiday money exercise by Cards Against Humanity... (read their FAQ).

Adam Conover at Deep Shift: Millennials Don't Exist!

This is a great talk by Adam Conover of TruTV's Adam Ruins Everything about why the generational labels given to every generation (and specifically "millennials") don't really mean anything! Every generation reacts the same way to the following generations and all of the things we hear about how lazy or narcissistic or entitled millennials are just simply aren't true when you look a little deeper at it. So listen to this and try not to spew more stereotypes out into the world!