AllState Insurance and the Tom Joyner Foundation are seeking to raise up to $150,000 for historically Black colleges and universities.
From now until the end of the year, for every person who mentions the Quotes for Education program while seeking an insurance quote from an Allstate agent, the company will donate $10 to the foundation which in turn will use the money to funds its scholarship program for students at HBCUs.
In addition, Allstate customers will have the opportunity to vote for an HBCU of their choice. The school with the most votes will receive a separate $50,000 donation that will be earmarked for student scholarships at that particular HBCU.
Readers can participate in the Quotes for Education program online by visiting this website.
Although any funds raised for HBCU’s are to be appreciated and are certainly better than no funds, this gesture by Allstate is not totally laudable. First, the offer is self serving inasmuch as Allstate seeks to gain by identifying a specific group of potential customers whose information they will store. Second, the chances are that they will derive some customers from those who request quotes. Considering the financial status of Allstate, if they wanted to be magnanimous they would make direct and significantly large contributions to HBCU’s simply because they have already profitted enormously from black people through the normal course of business, black entities deserve these kinds of reparations for historical reasons, and direct contributions do not require HBCU’s to be in competition with each other. The technique of setting up competition is the technique continually used to keep black people scrambling for crumbs or in some instances what might be regarded as the soup in the “set aside pot.” $150,000 is nothing in the Allstate ledger – to be spread among how many HBCU schools representing how many thousands of students ? Let’s get real Allstate.