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Selling products, such as fresh produce, online can promote poor people to earn money.

Is the above sentence grammatical? I got feedback from my teacher that I cannot use "promote sb to do sth" in grammar? Is that correct?

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    The teacher’s right. You could say that poor people could earn money by selling fresh produce on line. But have you considered what it takes to set up and run such a business, and what the authorities might consider their role in overseeing it?
    – Xanne
    Jun 24 at 6:22
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    It's not the grammar that's at fault, it's the vocabulary. Enable would be a better word. You can promote an activity, but you don't promote a person to do an activity.
    – Kate Bunting
    Jun 24 at 7:41
  • can help poor people make money.
    – Lambie
    Jun 26 at 17:54

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The verb "promote" does not normally take an infinitive complement (except in some limited senses, such as when the meaning is "in order to . . ."). Something like this would probably work better:

Selling products, such as fresh produce, online can help poor people to earn money.

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    Grammatical? 'Promote' isn't in any list of complex catenative verbs taking the to-infinitive I've come across. ... can [help / enable / encourage / prompt / *facilitate / *promote] poor people to earn money
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Jun 24 at 13:38
  • @EdwinAshworth I've edited the answer.
    – MarcInManhattan
    Jun 26 at 0:43

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