It took a fellow cause marketer, Clark Sweat, more than halfway across the country to call my attention to this story in my hometown newspaper on where Tom Brady got that Audi that was involved in a car crash last week.

The buzz here in Boston was that Tom might have been a closet New York Jets fan (the car had New Jersey plates). Fortunately, his loyalty to New England is still intact. But you have to wonder about the connection between his head bone and judgement.

Now The Globe is reporting that Brady got the $97,000 car as part of the sponsorship pact Audi has with Best Buddies, a nonprofit Brady has had a high profile role in for several years.

A spokesman for the car company says,  “As co-sponsors, we provide vehicles to Best Buddies and to Tom Brady. Part of it is appreciation for his participation with Best Buddies.’’

There is no direct sponsorship agreement between Brady and Audi.

Really.

So Audi is a sponsor of Best Buddies and its signature fundraising bike ride from Boston to Hyannis. As part of the deal, they give the nonprofit cars to drive. That’s cool. Although I wonder how many $100k cars the staff at Best Buddies are driving.

Then there’s Brady. He has no official relationship with Audi, yet he accepts an expensive car from them in appreciation of his volunteer work with Best Buddies. Beats a t-shirt, doesn’t it?

The right response from Brady would seem to be “Thanks, but give the car or some money to Best Buddies instead. I’m the highest paid player in NFL history, if I want a car I’ll buy one. If you want to give me a car, sign a a sponsorship deal with me.”

Audi overstepped its bounds and took too many liberties with their relationship with Best Buddies. That’s my position, but you could take another. Audi may have been acting in the cause’s best interests by keeping a key fundraising asset engaged and happy. Tom Brady has probably helped Best Buddies raise millions. Isn’t a car lease for the star player cheap insurance?

And what about Brady. He wasn’t hurt in last week’s accident, but his judgement in accepting the car appears to be dead on arrival. Should he rethink from whom he gets his cars? Or is it a much deserved cause marketing perk?

I want to love Komen’s new cause marketing partnership with Kentucky Fried Chicken, Buckets for the Cure. I really do.

• The partnership is a cause marketer’s dream with 5,000 stores participating. Cause marketing programs work best with lots of locations and lots of foot traffic. KFC has both.
• 50 cents of every bucket ordered by restaurant operators (interesting how the donation isn’t triggered by customers buying buckets but by operators ordering them) during the promotion period (now through May 30th) will go to Komen.
• Komen is guaranteed a cool million. But KFC is hoping to raise over $8 million, the largest single donation to a breast cancer cause.
• The program also has lots of extras too, like pink buckets you can’t miss and lids with calls to action to get involved.

Bear with me while I collect myself…heading toward the light…too beautiful, too wonderful…. ZZZAAAPPPP!

That’s Scotty Henderson prodding me back to reality with his eye-opening post on Buckets for the Cure.

Sigh. It was lovely while it lasted. But, alas, Buckets for the Cure is a horrible promotion full of cause dissonance that strips it of charity and authenticity.

The Komen/KFC debacle is a warning to all cause marketers that money should never cloud our values, our goals or our common sense. As Scotty points out, the conflict between the fight against breast cancer that Komen champions and the fat-infested food that KFC sells is simply irreconcilable.

It’s like Deadliest Catch sponsoring Sea World or Smith & Wesson funding a rifle range at Columbine High School.

With 2400 calories and 160 grams of fat, a bucket of extra crispy KFC should include the wig you’ll need for cancer treatments after eating this crap for years.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh on KFC. After all, they do offer a grilled version of their chicken bucket that has fewer calories.

Chicken shit.

The same week as the Buckets for a Cure began, KFC rolled out the Double Down. Bacon and cheese wrapped in two fried chicken breasts. 540 calories, 32 grams of fat and 1,380 milligrams of sodium.

Come on, KFC, are you really saying you care about the well being of women with this beast? Not true, retorts the Colonel. The target demo for the Double Down is men! So we should feel better knowing that the Double Down is a widow maker?

Perched on my soapbox, let me conclude.

Why did Komen do it? For the money, of course, which will never be enough to educate women and others on the perils of fat-farms like KFC. Komen knew they would ruffle a few feathers with this promotion, but soon all will be quiet in the hen house.

This is America where money can justify any crime, wash away any guilt, sanitize any reputation and rationalize any bad idea.

As a cause marketer who loves to win and close deals, I understand why Komen wanted to work with KFC. The lure of seven-figures. The promotion. It’s intoxicating. You talk yourself into it. Would I have advocated a similar partnership within my organization? Maybe. But thankfully my colleagues and superiors have better judgement than I do. Komen, at least in this instance, has been blinded by its ambitions.

It’s a story as old as humankind. It’s when fool is most consumed by success that a fox steals in to the hen house.