Newletter: When Politics Hurts Sponsorships, Lessons from ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ 🏁 ; The Top 10 Corporate Partnership Posts of 2021 🏆; 21 Social Impact Leaders Share Their Best Books of 2021 📚

Happy holidays! I'm wishing you and yours a very Happy New Year! Below are ten of my most popular posts from 2021.

1. Cause Docs: How to Sell & Close More Partnerships with Dan Cohen, Cause Partners

2. Cause Docs: How to Engage Your Board in Selling Partnerships with Nanette Fridman & Melissa Gladstone

3. Cause Docs: How to Work with Influencers with Lauren Lawson-Zilai, Goodwill Industries International

4. Why are Round-Up Fundraisers So Popular & Effective?

5. Your Partnership Program Needs a Keystone Content Asset

6. Cause Docs: How to Grow Your Partnership Team with Phil McCarty & Charisse Brown Marcus, Good Scout

7. Why Social Media is Important to Corporate Partnerships

8. The Marvel Comics Guide to Nonprofit Storytelling

9. Better Sponsorships Packages with Thriller, Spiller, Filler

10. Why You Should Include Pets in Your Nonprofit Marketing

See you next year! 🎉🥳🎊🍾😘

✍️ Partnership Notes

1. Not everyone can adopt a pet, but every one can sponsor one! I love this idea of selling sponsorship opportunities tied to specific animals so they can get extra treats, playtime, and cuddles. Of course, my larger hope is that with more money, ALL the animals will be treated better.😊

BTW, you can tie sponsorship to practically anything - just be specific about it. Every year I buy a bed sponsorship at Lighthouse Recovery Services in honor of my Selfish Giving newsletter readers!

2. It's one thing if you intentionally choose a side. But when others choose it for you things can get rough. The NASCAR driver who unintentionally sparked ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ chant says corporations don’t want to sponsor him. It's a mine field out there, folks.💥💥

"If you’re a national corporation, that means you sell to all consumers … and unfortunately, when you get dragged into the political arena, people want you to take a side."

🤑 Marketing Your Cause

1. Nice Twitter thread here from Amanda Natividad of things we all need to be working on in 2022 (e.g. Tying marketing to specific goals, matching content to customer needs, writing better headlines, etc.)

😎 Cool Jobs in Cause

1. Director, Business Development, Operation Homefront, McLean, VA/Remote ($64k - $93k)

2. Senior Manager, Cause Marketing & Sponsorship, Susan G. Komen, Remote

3. Director of Marketing & Communications, Revolutionary Spaces, Boston ($65k - $70k)

Do you have a partnership position you are trying to fill? Hit reply and share the job posting with me! I'm happy to post it here for FREE.

🧠🍌 Brain Food

1. More and more misinformation is skipping Facebook and going straight into your inbox. But unlike Facebook, which has plenty of critics, misinformation in emails is going largely unchecked.

2. 21 social impact-obsessed people share the best books they read in 2021. My pick is Good Business: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World by my friend and Georgetown University colleague Professor Bill Novelli.