St. Louis Nonprofits Fear This Bud Is No Longer for Them
Red-blooded Americans are not the only ones recoiling in horror that before long, each case of Budweiser they buy will dump money into the coffers of a Belgian company.
Nonprofits in St. Louis, where Anheuser-Busch’s headquarters are located, are worried that the brewer’s new owner, InBev, may not provide the kind of support they’ve come to depend upon over the years.
Anheuser-Busch gave $13 million to charitable causes in the St. Louis region last year. At least 70 local organizations got money from A-B. Carlos Brito, the chief executive officer of InBev, has said his company would maintain a St. Louis civic presence.
As indifferent as I am to who owns a brewer whose products I find to be watered-down, flavorless excuses for beer, 13 million bucks is nothing to sneeze at. And with TWA long gone, I’m hard-pressed to identify a corporate titan who can provide St. Louis with the charitable presence it’s come to rely on. It just might be time for the city’s suds drinkers to switch to Miller High Life. | 501(c)
Before they switch to Miller they should consider that the City of Chicago just bribed Miller-Coors with $20 million to move its headquarters here, and that we in the Chicago nonprofit community are determined to squeeze that money back out via corporate contributions. Whatever St. Louisans drink, they’re going to be out of luck.
Alcohol-related funding is corrosive on public life. I’m not against corporate contributions overall, but I am against alcohol and tobacco companies buying good will through their “charity.” While you are right that $13 million is nothing to sneeze at, I would love to see how much alcohol-related health and safety issues (hospitalizations, DUI’s, domestic violence, alcohol-related deaths) cost the city of St. Louis last year. I doubt that $13 million would cover it.
All the more reason, Nonprofiteer Kelly, to stick to more flavorful beers brewed locally and in small batches!
I appreciate your concerns, John, but A-B’s product, like Philip Morris’s, is a legal one, and the alcohol industry does not even come close to Big Tobacco in the level of public deception engaged in in hopes of obscuring health effects.