Fortunately, food purchased as a PR move tastes just as good and is just as nutritious as the same food purchased out of heartfelt philanthropy.

We care about what people think because we care about what people do.

You don’t put a monetary value on non-cash donations in your press release for purely heartfelt philanthropy.

Serious.

In general, I don't believe it's necessary to distinguish one from the other. An organization can simply leverage the former to achieve the latter, can they not?

Regardless of whether it's "heartfelt" or not, Meals on Wheels benefits equally.

How can you distinguish either from a move to funnel money to avoid taxation?

Heartfelt philanthropy is usually starts before a company is mired in scandal. It is something that a company leader talks about before unpleasant videos of them being an asshole are on TMZ. People tend to be able to see through bullshit and this effort by Uber is completely transparent.