CVS was sued for using customer donations at checkout to fund a corporate philanthropy pledge

In November 2021, US pharmaceutical giant CVS announced a $10 million commitment to the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to be delivered over three years. Introducing its pledge, CVS’s social responsibility team said the donations would support families dealing with diabetes and fund research to eradicate health disparities. The company also said it would “host an in-store fundraising campaign at all CVS Pharmacy locations nationwide during National Diabetes Month to give customers an opportunity to support the ADA.”

What CVS omitted, according to a lawsuit (pdf) filed earlier this year in federal court in New York, is that the donations collected from customers through in-store fundraising weren’t going to be in addition to the initial pledge. Rather, they would be used in lieu of donations coming from CVS’s coffers.