Cause Marketing, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Responsibility — these are todays keywords. Partnerships between nonprofits and for-profit companies can create highly successful campaigns that ensure gains for both organizations. This also works when nonprofits team up with high-profile celebrities to work on specific campaigns.
Nonprofit organizations, constantly suffering a limited amount of resources, benefit from capital funding as well as the image of the partner corporation. Corporations stand to improve their reputation as socially responsible enterprises while developing priceless emotional connections with their stakeholders.
Lately we’ve seen prominent celebrities attaching their names and faces to nonprofit campaigns…these campaigns have in turn achieved levels of brand awareness that rival that of today’s most prominent corporations. Examples of celebrity-cause partnerships are Bono and Product (Red); Angelina Jolie and UNICEF; and who can forget Lance Armstrong and his own cancer fighting organization LiveStrong.
Strategic philanthropy is often contracted out to consultancies that specialize in this niche market – but you don’t have to look too far to find great development officers and directors that work on corporate partnership strategies in-house. Companies that provide cause-marketing and strategic philanthropy services include Business for Social Responsibility, Business in the Community, Cone, and Changing Our World.
And of course, there’s a web tie-in…check out the new startup Causecast.org. Causecast teams up nonprofit organizations with corporate and celebrity sponsors while providing a web platform for donations, promotional media, and social networking. Any 501(c)(3) organization can join Causecast and begin accepting donations immediately – they can also upload campaign-related media, provide real-time campaign updates, and use Causecast’s blogging system.
Click Here for an Update: More Web 2.0 Social Networks for ‘Causes’ and ‘Nonprofits’
Today in the news: Audi has alloted $2.5 million to support the Best Buddies (intellectual disabilities organization) bicycling challenge; Miller Lite raised more than $500,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association; and Olivia Newton-John has partnered with Curves to distribute 1 million breast self-exam aids.
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Great topic M
I think that the (red) campaign has got to be the largest of its kind. You are right that these cause-marketing campaigns like LiveStrong and (red) have become their own brands that are very well known – and I’m sure that the creators of the campaigns are seriously hoping to have them ‘brand hijacked.’
M,
Interesting stuff! I’m a little suspicious of mixing corporate motives and journalism, but I do think it has to be explored
Persephone
Persephone – I’m not sure about the exact aspect you’re suspicious about but I’m also wary of corporate agendas that are disguised through philanthropic actions. We can take Big Tobacco for great examples of exploitive ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ communications campaigns. Thanks to the anti-Big Tobacco lobby in the US (as puny as it is compared to theirs) we don’t have to deal with too much…but the third world is fertile ground for corruption of media. That is..it’s not so hard to get a story printed in your favor with the right amount of cash.
I see where you both are coming from but isn’t the right to free and un-governed speech what keeps us all happy? If we restrict corporations from getting PR in big media aren’t we defeating the purpose of free market capitalism and civil liberties at the same time? England has the BBC to present their supposedly unbiased material – perhaps we should have a government run media organization similar to that to keep things Kosher?
Thank you for preparing such an article.