Giving Compass' Take:

• The author outlines the strategies consumers can use in order to see if beauty brands are authentic in their philanthropic promises or if it just about having a good marketing team. 

• How can other businesses in the beauty industry hold each other responsible for maintaining philanthropic accountability? 

• Read about whether or not it the motivation behind businesses philanthropy matters or not. 

Meet Billie, a chicly packaged razor start-up. Billie’s website says its mission is to take on the “pink tax”­ — price hikes on products marketed to women — and that it donates “1 percent of all revenue to women’s causes around the world.” It’s well-intentioned, but also a bit vague. Is Billie making truly meaningful contributions to truly meaningful organizations? Or is it one of a growing number of beauty brands that seem to be trading, at least in part, on a loosely defined give-back mission?

But as socially centered brands become more common, so will “good-washing” (making your company sound more virtuous than it really is). “Sometimes it’s done out of ignorance and good intent; sometimes there are deceptions that try to capitalize on sympathies, especially in the wake of disasters,” Weiner says. Sure, it can be a challenge to distinguish between real philanthropy and savvy marketing — this checklist will help clear things up.

  • Listen for a name. A generic reference to a cause can be a red flag. “Often you hear that money is going to ‘disaster relief’ or ‘domestic violence victims,’ but identifying the name of one or more organizations is the first thing a consumer should be doing,” says Larry Lieberman, the chief operating officer of Charity Navigator.
  • Look for numbers. The more specific a company is about the portion of your purchase that goes to charity, the better, says Genevieve Shaker, an associate professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
  • Think big picture. If a company is truly committed to a cause, it’ll support it for years, even decades, and will do so in more than one way.

Read the full article about how to tell if a beauty brand is philanthropic by Jessica Chia at Allure