Box Tops for Idiots

When my eldest first approached me with the idea of collecting box tops for education, I was naturally very supportive.  After a few months I had collected 15 to 20 coupons for a whopping total of almost $2.00.  I thought to myself, I would rather pay $200 ($100 to the school and another $100 to my kid) as a payment to not have to go through the hassle of collecting these coupons.  In fact, I looked up how much my school raised (you can see the results at boxtops4education.com) and it was well under $300 for each of the last few years. I personally would be willing to pay the school $300 each year while my kid is there to stop our participation.

You have to tip your hat to General Mills for coming up with such an ingenius and efficient way to appear benevolant without having to really give up anything.  Assuming a box of cereal costs $4.00 the contribution is $0.10, or exactly 0.0025  of the retail price.  And that is in return for me cutting out the coupon, having my kid bring it to school where it is further processed by the teacher and then the fund raising organizer.  You can be sure that General Mills and the other participating companies (such as S.C. Johnson) have done the analysis to determine that participation in the program generates enough incremental sales to off-set any contributions they make.  How could it not?

The next time your PTA suggests participating in Box Tops for Education, I encourage you to challenge them to find out how much is collected and to decide if it is worth the effort.  I know that I will never participate again and I hope my school stops wasting its time on this project soon.