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Conservation International and MasterCard partnership - USA first other countries to follow
May 25, 2021
1:36 am
User230
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May 25, 2021
6:28 am
Loonie
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As far as I can see, Conservation International is not a registered charity in Canada. I don't see any value from that point of view.

However, the BMO cards give 3% on grocery stores and have no fee, so that sounds good for people who spend enough at grocery stores to make it worthwhile (not CostCo, farmers' markets, many WalMarts, pharmacies that sell groceries, corner stores that don't take CCs, etc).
I didn't see anything about a spend limit on that, but you should check if you are interested.

May 25, 2021
8:02 am
lhsaid
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User230 said
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210521005207/en/Mastercard-Partners-with-Conservation-International-to-Protect-and-Restore-Wildlife-Habitats-through-New-Line-of-Wildlife-Impact-Cards

I am hoping this comes to Canada.

More cards with a cause:

https://www.bmo.com/main/personal/credit-cards/affinity/animal-welfare/

Here is a breakdown of the charity:
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3562

Not a perfect charity. Pretty high profile though.  

This looks like a rip-off to me ! I pretended buying a gift card of $25 and they wanted to charge me $29 ($4 fee, see attached pic) and donate $1 to the "Conservation International" ! where the did the $3 go ? and, even if they donate all the $4 fee it still doesn't make sense, Mastercard is not contributing anything ! They actually want to make money with this.Capture.JPG

May 25, 2021
4:53 pm
User230
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Hi lhsaid,

I am not sure how the partnership works. I just read the news in a search. Thought it was a neat partnership between a credit card company and a charity.

The cause of the charity seems to be interesting.

The debit cards are a US product right now. Offered by a US company USIO.

If the product came to Canada the product would likely be different and have a different financial partner. It may even be a credit card offering and not a debit card offering.

May 25, 2021
5:05 pm
User230
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Loonie said
As far as I can see, Conservation International is not a registered charity in Canada. I don't see any value from that point of view.

However, the BMO cards give 3% on grocery stores and have no fee, so that sounds good for people who spend enough at grocery stores to make it worthwhile (not CostCo, farmers' markets, many WalMarts, pharmacies that sell groceries, corner stores that don't take CCs, etc).
I didn't see anything about a spend limit on that, but you should check if you are interested.  

Hi Loonie,

I have heard of Conservation International before. They are a high profile charity. I am not sure if they are registered in Canada. I did not check this. I think they do most of their work in Africa and South America.

If I recall correctly, I read years ago about the BMO cards as I was interested in one. Ended up not getting the card as I already had a pile of credit cards.

BMO gives a certain amount to a charity to be affiliated with them. Most of the affiliated cards are the exact same as the BMO regular cards. Which means cash back is the same in those cases.

This makes it easy to support a charity, have a cool looking card, and have card benefits that are potentially okay.

May 26, 2021
11:04 am
lhsaid
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User230 said
Hi lhsaid,

I am not sure how the partnership works. I just read the news in a search. Thought it was a neat partnership between a credit card company and a charity.

The cause of the charity seems to be interesting.

The debit cards are a US product right now. Offered by a US company USIO.

If the product came to Canada the product would likely be different and have a different financial partner. It may even be a credit card offering and not a debit card offering.  

Hi User230,
Understood. The way it is described above, It doesn't make any sense to me, the charity is not benefiting as much as the MasterCard company !

May 26, 2021
1:34 pm
Norman1
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Sometimes, most of the benefits of the "partnership" with a charity is not to the charity.

There was a eye opening revelation about those small charity collection boxes one used to see at the checkout of stores. People think that when they deposit their change into them the money goes to the charity printed on the box. It turned out not always to be the case.

Some charities would "rent" those boxes out to the store for a fixed fee. In return, the store gets to keep any money collected!

May 26, 2021
3:23 pm
lhsaid
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Norman1 said
Sometimes, most of the benefits of the "partnership" with a charity is not to the charity.

There was a eye opening revelation about those small charity collection boxes one used to see at the checkout of stores. People think that when they deposit their change into them the money goes to the charity printed on the box. It turned out not always to be the case.

Some charities would "rent" those boxes out to the store for a fixed fee. In return, the store gets to keep any money collected!  

Really Norman1 !! WAW, will never drop a buck in those boxes then !

June 3, 2021
12:48 am
RetirEd
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"Affinity" charities are basically a way for companies to get the tax deduction instead of you, in many cases. Like when Telus asked if we'd let them send our refunds to a charity instead of to us!

If you really care about charitable donations, save the money from promotions and make the donation directly to the charity - and also try to avoid their profit-taking promotional events and go direct to the charity! Then you give 100% of your donation to the cause AND get the tax deduction yourself.

There are cases where the companies actually DO make a deduction from their own funds, and more power to them. But if they charge you, keep part of the donation AND take the tax deduction, I wouldn't.
RetirEd

RetirEd

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