Selfish Giving
JUNE 10, 2011
I just can’t understand what Kentucky Fried Chicken is thinking with its latest cause marketing program. This picture says it all. Buy a HALF-GALLON of soda – with 800 calories from 56 spoonfuls of sugar – for $2.99 and a buck goes to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I’m actually more astonished that JDRF would sign on for such a pact.
Nonprofit Tech for Good
NOVEMBER 17, 2011
Many of us will purchase hundreds of dollars in holiday gifts over the next six weeks, and with some conscious consumerism those dollars could also help some of your favorite nonprofits continue their work in 2012. Now in it’s third year (View the 2009 Edition and 2010 Edition ), the 11 holiday gift programs listed below benefit nonprofits and thus help make the world a better place: 1. 10,000 Villages Online Store: One of the world’s largest fair trade organizations and a foundin
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Fundraising Coach
DECEMBER 2, 2011
I love William Goldman’s classic The Princess Bride , and the movie of the same name. And as a dad, I’m proud that my kids can quote portions. (Not as much as me, but I’ve seen the movie a few dozen more times.). But did you know there are nonprofit lessons embedded in the story? Here are three I’ve identified: Praise everyone–even those you’re fighting against.
The Agitator
NOVEMBER 3, 2011
Send this to your CEO and every member of your board. Right now! Frankly, I’m exhausted from preparing this, but I really hope you’ll invest the time to read the whole post. Believe me, it’s worth it if you care about the future of your organization. Here’s why. Blackbaud has just delivered a “must read” report on Growing Philanthropy in the U.S. Read and heed.
Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio, Director of Corporate Brand
This session will dive into how to create rich generosity experiences that foster long-lasting relationships. You’ll walk away with actionable insights to redefine how you engage with your supporters—emphasizing trust, engagement, and community over transactional giving models. 🤝 Industry expert Tim Sarrantonio will explore data-backed strategies to engage supporters as active participants in a community that values their contributions and shared ideals.
Get Fully Funded
OCTOBER 29, 2011
Many people are being wildly successful in fundraising these days. After working with several, I’ve noticed that share a few things in common. 1. The are passionate about their cause. They believe deeply in the work their nonprofit does and they love seeing loves changed. 2. They are willing to do whatever it takes to see their nonprofit organization succeed.
Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog
MAY 6, 2011
When I ask staff at nonprofits to describe their organization’s public personality, I often get blank stares, or something like “Ummm. we don’t have one, so I guess, well, how about ‘boring?’&#. I admit, it’s a tough question, especially if you’ve never considered that an organization could even have a personality in the first place.
Nonprofit Leadership Zone brings together the best content for advertising professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Care2
NOVEMBER 29, 2011
The 2011 Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report provides some incredible data on how 11K+ nonprofits are using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. The study also answers the biggest question on everyone's mind. Are nonprofits raising any money on social networks? Big Picture Data. Facebook is the most popular commercial social network for nonprofits.
Fundraiser Ideas
JUNE 15, 2011
Especially during difficult economic times, charities and nonprofit organizations should consider fundraising strategies that require little or no cash outlay. The revenues generated by free fundraising ideas can be directly used for the work of the organization and require no upfront expenditure of already limited funds. Here are 10 free fundraising ideas that can produce great results.
Selfish Giving
OCTOBER 27, 2011
I love zombie films. I can’t get enough of them, especially around Halloween when the shadows from the leafless trees take on ominous shapes. Yikes! While you may not share my love for the semi-dead, you might agree with this: most of us are surrounded by these mute, will-less, dumb, sometimes evil and dangerous brutes everyday. The zombies stalking nonprofits are the people and situations they face daily that threaten their success and risk plunging them into a zombie apocalypse.
Selfish Giving
NOVEMBER 22, 2011
Whatever challenges, misfortunes and problems you faced this year, I bet you still have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s just the fact that you’re alive! I know I’m thankful for a lot of things. After all the important stuff, I’m thankful for good businesses and nonprofits that execute great cause marketing promotions that make me proud to call myself a cause marketer.
Speaker: Tim Sarrantonio
The average nonprofit uses five or more different software platforms to create their donor’s journey, making the experience clunky and disjointed. If you want to design a magical online giving experience for donors, making their journey as seamless as possible is key. In this webinar with expert Tim Sarrantonio, you’ll learn the fundamental steps to create an immersive and personalized online giving experience for your donors.
Selfish Giving
JUNE 23, 2011
Niccolo Machiavelli , the Italian diplomat who wrote the classical treatise The Prince 500 years ago, probably would have been a big fan of cause marketing. For a man so interested in statecraft, Machiavelli would appreciate the bottom-line benefits of cause marketing to causes and companies. Some have called Machiavelli a manipulator. I see him more as a realist.
Selfish Giving
JULY 19, 2011
You all know I love cause marketing - a partnership between a nonprofit and for-profit for mutual profit. But I also love iced tea. So it’s no surprise that I love T?volution , a delicious new brand of iced tea from Purpose Beverages, Inc. , launching right now in in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. This is purpose-driven entrepreneurship as T?
Selfish Giving
SEPTEMBER 6, 2011
When I was a kid charity was for chumps. Despite the fact that my family, and most of our neighbors, got all types of government and public charity, we saw how carelessly and unevenly it was spread to the deserving and not so deserving. After church, where everyone put a buck or two in the basket, charity was sporadic and sometimes exploited. Every Labor Day weekend the neighborhood kids went door to door collecting money for the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon.
Selfish Giving
SEPTEMBER 12, 2011
You can use all the facts, figures and statistics you want, but unless you make an emotional connection with people they usually won’t give. If by chance they do, it will be go-away money. You’ll be as disappointed to receive it as they are reluctant to give it. Emotion is important to all types of fundraising, including cause marketing.
Selfish Giving
OCTOBER 18, 2011
Selfish Giving and Cone Communications , a leading public relations and marketing agency that specializes in cause marketing, are teaming up to share our top “pinktober” cause marketing promotions. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and companies are partnering with breast cancer charities on a variety of “pink” promotions.
Selfish Giving
DECEMBER 13, 2011
I love Christmastime! There’s classic music like Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer , time with friends and family (minus grandma), lots of delicious baked goods from my wife and, yes, presents! I’ve already gotten some great gifts: five cause marketing promotions that keep me believing in the spirit of giving that happens when company and cause work together.
Selfish Giving
NOVEMBER 2, 2011
I’m fascinated by the whole food truck phenomenon. We have a number of food trucks here in Boston and I just finished watching The Great Food Truck Race on The Food Network. I’m also heading out to Los Angeles today for the Blogworld Expo and am hoping to sample some of their great food trucks! I’m impressed by how food trucks market themselves and are such big users of social media.
Selfish Giving
JUNE 8, 2011
Everyone wants to be more successful selling their cause marketing programs. But how? Try social media. It’s been a key part of my success, and I bet social media can help you too. I’ll talk about how to use social media to sell cause marketing in another post. But let’s first confirm why you should use social media for cause marketing in the first place.
Selfish Giving
NOVEMBER 29, 2011
I love when students put their education to good use. Maggie Keenan , a branding and cause marketing consultant in Savannah, Georgia, is a graduate of my Six Figure Cause Marketing course , which shows nonprofits and businesses how to develop and execute an effective and lucrative cause marketing program. Maggie gets an A+ for her latest effort: a regional cause marketing program to support the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless, Inc.
Selfish Giving
MAY 2, 2011
I’m always finding good examples of cause marketing on Twitter. I have a few open searches on Tweetdeck that capture most of them. The great people I follow on Twitter send me the rest. I had these seven cause marketing promotions saved in my “favorites.&# They offer something for everyone. Pay attention! Toys “R&# Us Speaks Up for Autism.
Selfish Giving
JANUARY 5, 2011
Last January I wrote a post on What is Cause Marketing? that got a lot of great feedback. Over the past year I’ve gone back to that post many time and reread the comments again and thought about how I was defining cause marketing. I felt I had the first part right. Cause marketing is a partnership between a nonprofit and a for-profit for mutual profit.
Selfish Giving
SEPTEMBER 26, 2011
Facebook made some interesting changes last week that may help evolve how nonprofits and businesses use Facebook “likes” for cause marketing. The change should shakeup how organizations weigh the meaning/worth of a Facebook “like.” All of us have seen Facebook cause marketing programs before. If you “like” the nonprofit’s (or sometimes the businesses’) page the company makes a donation to the nonprofit.
Selfish Giving
APRIL 27, 2011
I’m really excited to have Jocelyne Daw guest post on my blog today. In addition to being a wonderful author who’s written two of my favorite books on cause marketing, Cause Marketing for Nonprofits and Breakthrough Nonprofit Branding (with Carol Cone ), Jocelyne has been a great mentor to me and other cause marketers. In her post today, Jocelyne makes an important distinction between cause marketing and sponsorship.
Selfish Giving
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011
The gang over at For Momentum had a great post yesterday on a new cause marketing program that Better Homes and Gardens is launching on their website this fall. Of course, I’m a self-professed Halloween junkie (along with David Neff ) so I love stuff like this. Every fall, pumpkins and pumpkin stencils are the most popular content on BHG.com.
Selfish Giving
JULY 4, 2011
Happy Fourth of July! I’m celebrating the day with these three cause marketing promotions that support our troops – a great cause to support on the day we celebrate freedom. I didn’t find these promotions. I asked you to send me your examples of Indendence Day cause marketing and you responded! These three were the best. In first place, Joey Leslie in San Luis Obiscpo, California sent me this promotion from Which Wich bags that will be filling decorated bags with treats for tro
Selfish Giving
FEBRUARY 28, 2011
I love Twitter. There’s a certain magic to Twitter. So interesting. So fast. So current. So informative… So short, just 140 characters. I’ve learned a lot about cause marketing on Twitter, and now I want to my fantastic teachers with you! My criteria for picking them. I chose real people as much as possible. For me, Twitter is all about talking to people, not logos or brands or billboards.
Selfish Giving
JUNE 16, 2011
It’s been an interesting week since I wrote my post on the cause marketing promotion between Kentucky Fried Chicken and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I learned a lot, particularly about Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. I plan to put my new found education to good use in the coming months. But there are lessons for everyone from this cause marketing promotion.
Selfish Giving
DECEMBER 19, 2011
The Arby’s Foundation , the giving arm of Arby’s Restaurant Group , the second largest sandwich shop chain in the United States, did something last week that rivals the good deeds of Santa Claus himself. It gave Share Our Strength’s (SOS) No Kid Hungry campaign $2 million dolllars. Arby’s customers kicked in most of it. $1.7 million to be exact.
Selfish Giving
AUGUST 3, 2011
The Foursquare check-in for Cause Marketing for Dummies in this city is at the landmark that inspired one of the first cause marketing promotions. Are you in Boston, New York or Los Angeles today? Well, it’s your lucky day! Check-in to “Cause Marketing for Dummies&# on Foursquare in Boston, New York and Los Angeles– today only –and one person in each city will win a copy of my first book Cause Marketing for Dummies.
Selfish Giving
MARCH 28, 2011
I’ve admired UNICEF’s Tap Project since it began in 2008. Since then it’s raised $2.5 million. This year’s program wrapped up on Saturday and I’m sure they’ll add generously to this total. Have you visited the Tap Project web site ? There’s a lot cause marketers can learn and borrow from the site. This program is easy, turnkey and completely replicable.
Selfish Giving
JUNE 21, 2011
I’ve made it my mission of late to find good online cause marketing options for small companies and causes. Thanks to the Cause Marketing Forum Conference two weeks ago , I’ve discovered two more. I’m a little embarrassed that I’m just learning of MissionFish and Benevity. But better late than never, right? MissionFish , which was just acquired by eBay in May, has a tagline that says it all: “The way to fundraise on eBay.&#.
Selfish Giving
APRIL 4, 2011
New research out of the University of Michigan confirms what I always knew was true: I was right to name my cause marketing blog Selfish Giving. After giving college students the choice between donating through a cause marketing promotion or donating directly, the students that chose the former felt more selfish, less generous and even less happy. Maybe I should change my blog to SelfishStingyUnhappyGiving.com.
Selfish Giving
APRIL 25, 2011
All great advice books have a certain agelessness. While their subject is defined by their time, they share common themes and ancient wisdom. Placed in a different time and place, they could have been written by Aristotle, Plato, Montaigne, Thoreau or by modern authors Dale Carnegie, Stephen Covey or Jim Collins. A new addition to the library of timeless advice is Randal Moss and David Neff’s The Future of Nonprofits.
Selfish Giving
NOVEMBER 21, 2011
Over the past few months I’ve delivered and listened to a lot of speeches, especially at Blogworld Expo last month. I heard some good ones and some not so good ones. Sadly, a lot of these mediocre speeches could have been good, even great – they had the right “bones” (e.g. good speaker, engaging topic) – but they lacked what makes a speech interesting, compelling and memorable.
Selfish Giving
JULY 13, 2011
Lately, I’ve been thinking of two things. First, the role of technology in achieving our goals. Second, what the future will be for my favorite tool for corporate social responsibility, cause marketing. I started thinking about technology when Google + arrived. Many of you have spoken very well of it and I’ve enjoyed using. But my gut reaction is a loathing that I will have yet another social network to learn, use and update.
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