All I can say is you seem like an incredibly bitter and cynical person from your posts on this subject. I think maybe they chose charities they felt were worthy causes. I'm sorry that you don't see educating people in other countries as worthy.
Let's have a case of some rich corporation in Afghanistan, we all know it's terrible there, yet this corporation decides they will donate part of their profits to another country, that likely has it worst (say, Sudan). Terrific... now the question is: why?. I mean this is great, but really, why?, that money could have gone to the people you know in Afghanistan, why is it so hard to give back to the community in which you are rooted? (or to criticize corporations that don't give back to their community)
I think it's terrific that Firaxis or 2k decided to give money towards education, it's amazing. So to which neighbouhood from Baltimore are you guys investing on?, which neighbourhood are you guys uplifting, so that black people here actually have a chance at getting out of the ghetto, so that they will thrive and go to college (and not end up in the drug trade). You know them, they are the guys who drive that taxi you rode last night, the ones you see on your way to downtown Baltimore from Hunt valley, the ones that provide services for you and that likely your kids don't go to college with.
It just feels weird and off, I'd love to support 2k and Firaxis on this, but the effort feels really half assed, it basiclly boils down to a not very well thought off generic contribution for "education". I've seen them all before, when the corporations went green for global warming (meaning they changed their logo to an actual green color) and when they supported that epidemic of breast cancer (and changed it to pink).
It's not cynicism or bitterness to say that Baltimore is a messed up place (they made a show about it: The Wire! and Homicide: life in the Streets), where a lot of companies that work here don't really try to uplift it. I'm all up for Firaxis and 2k giving a little bit back, but you don't have to go out of your way and send it extremely far away, things are messed up where you live too.
http://www.firaxis.com/company/commrel-education.php
Firaxis donates employee volunteer hours to the Maryland Business Round Table for Education in mentoring creation of a Teen Website to improve school performance for under-performing high school students in Baltimore City.
and yet this was a less advertised, far more responsible effort.