Pink Backlash

You can hardly not notice that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. No other cause has been able to do what the Breast Cancer charities have been able to do and brand a month and own a colour. I love it.

For the first time ever though this year I have seen some articles from people warning about a Pink Backlash, or potential backlash. There seems to be some concern over how genuine the partnerships are in some instances and how much of the profit goes to the cause, while the company gets to highlight its pink credentials to its core market.

Its an interesting debate and all I would say to charities is dont undervalue your own brand, you can say No to a partnership if it isnt right for you.

Take a look at these articles on the topic

• Pink Product Fever
• Sick of Pink
• Sick of Pink Complainers

Marketing for Change

I read about this at the weekend, it started with started with Alternatives founders Sandra & Aldagh seeing how they could apply their business competency to make a real difference in addition to the work they were doing with their selected charity. The idea is simply to bring charities and experienced marketers together. It allows the charities benefit from the experience and marketers can select projects that match their skill set and time limitations.  Check out the Marketing for Change site here

Nice idea, well done Alternatives

The New Corporate Giving Trend

I noticed the Target Facebook campaign where they asked their customers (and others) to vote for a charity from a list of ten. Each of the ten would recieve a share of the 3 million dollar pot (Beth Kanter has some more info on it here). Its kind of Kiva like in its approach isnt it.

Charity Navigator have posted on their blog about another company doing something similar. Tom’s of Maine is offering five $20,000 donations to support community projects in a contest called 50 States for Good.

Charity Navigator sees this as a continuing of the trend of for profits allowing their stakeholders have a say in where their donations go. We have seen this here to a degree with companies short listing charities for a charity of the year and asking employees to vote for their “favourite”.

CN says that:

Pairing philanthropic work with customer involvement is a natural move for many companies, who typically give back a portion of their earnings to the community. By drawing new visitors to their site with an interactive experience such as voting, they engage their patrons while supporting a good cause. The Tom’s of Maine contest has drawn applications from organizations in nearly every state.

One of the issues we often face in talking to companies is how we are going to help them do their business by partnering with them and this seems like it ticks that box. I have certainly seen it lead to charities campaigning and driving people to the site of the company involved. On the down side it probably means the larger organisation will fair better in a National campaign and it may lead to a bit more competition in the market (like there isnt enough!).

Some other examples are Waitrose, who do the same thing but very very locally and Smarties in Canada who did Colours for a Cause. So this seems like the trend and the smart charities will embrace this and adapt their approaches to reflect this kind of thinking. How you do that is up to you….maybe you partner with others and approach a corporate, maybe you choose projects that customers can vote to support.

Attack Yourself

It is so helpful to take yourself out of the charity bubble and listen to things from the client side. I did that today for an hour and it was such a kick in the behind for me.

Despite my rants and raves about needing to stop talking like non profits and focus on what corporates want, which I do so often here…I still found myself doing it in a meeting.  I could see the person I was talking to, their eyes were glazing over!!

I sometimes think Im on the right track and sometimes I am, but today reminded me that I need to step out more often and think of things from the other side of the fence. Not just say I am or think I am but really do it.

Essentially it boils down to attacking yourself and what you are doing, find the gaps and the holes and then plugging them.

Attack Yourself.

Hugh Jackman giving away 100k on Twitter

About 12 hours ago Hugh Jackman posted the following on his twitter profile

RealHughJackman: I will donate 100K to one individual’s favorite non profit organization.Of course,you must convince me why by using 140 characters or less

Start getting your 140 charachters together and tweet the man!

Corporates can support you in other ways

So maybe your corporate partners don’t have the funds to support you in the ways they did before. I have spoken before about us needing to find new ways to engage our corporates. Well here is one I came across on UK Fundraising.

MeccaBingo.com, the current sponsor of rugby league team Wigan Warriors, is donating the shirt sponsorship for the team’s match against the French team the Catalan Dragons to Whizz-Kidz, its official charity partner.

This sponsorship is actually helping MeccaBingo over come a stumbling block of sponsorship law in France, but Whizz Kidz are benefitting.

Do you have a corporate partner that would work with you in this way?

Funding Point

Funding Point

www.fundingpoint.ie is up and running.

The site contains details about hundreds of funding schemes from government grants to trusts and corporate grants, including all the info you need to make the application.

Sounds great. And it is.

What annoyed me a bit was the fact that on the flier and any other information I saw about it thwere was nothing that said I had to pay for the service!!

I dont really mind, but it was being promoted as being funded by the Vodafone Foundation so it seemed like it was going to be a great portal of resources that we could all access, but you have to pay for it.

I will probably subscribe, but if anyone from the Wheel or Vodafone is reading, please make it a bit clearer on future communications that there is a fee.

Director of Appreciation Appointed

Do you ever think we will get to see this Headline?

I don’t know. But, outside of its mission, what is the most important thing a non-profit does? In my book it’s…..Appreciate.

As soon as we start to take our donations for granted, we are in trouble. As soon as we don’t treat each donation as a personal gift to us, we are in trouble. As soon as we start to send out mail merged receipts that don’t talk personally about why that person donated, we are in trouble.

I know it is difficult to wade through all the donations we get and treat each one personally, but we need to. We need to invest in this and that is why I believe non-profits need to consider appointing a Director of Appreciation. Their job description is simple:

Make sure that everyone who connects with your cause feels appreciated and ensure that every contact every single staff member has results in the donor feeling special

I think it is time for non-profits to consider such a role in their organisation. We are in the business of caring so why not care about those who allow us stay in business.

I would love to hear from anyone who knows of an organisation that has any such role, or something that is even similar?

Is this the greatest fundraising mantra?

image courtesy of i5prof

I was reassured recently that the greatest mantra a fundraiser can have in their armour is, Don’t give up.

A friend was talking to me about getting their organisation involved in helping kids in the area where their office is located. They weren’t planning on raising money instead they wanted to help the kids to raise their skill levels.

I asked why his organisation hadn’t done this before, I thought perhaps they didn’t have the resources or maybe he was going to tell me that they felt the time was right now to give back (all good answers). But the answer he gave shocked me a little. The organisation had wanted to do this for a long time, but one senior executive was blocking the plans, he just didn’t see the value. He has left now.

So as you go out there with your proposals for support, remember never to give up, it may not be you, it could simply be the organisation has internal issues that wont allow them support you, at the moment. Try find out if that is the case, or what is the case, ask why they cant support you now (of course be nice about it). 

I remember putting in a pitch for charity of the year a few years back and wasn’t successful, instead of saying ah well that sucks, I called  the company in question and asked if I could meet with them so they could let me know where i went wrong. And they did. And I learnt lots about my presentation/proposal and my own organisation. This made my future pitches a lot better. It is a worthwhile strategy, you will get really valuable information

Then stay in touch, dont harass, but let the organisation know you are still there, a newsletter every 6 months would work. Then when the time is right you will be well positioned to be considered for their support.

So remember sometimes, its not you, so dont give up

Sponsorship is a tricky thing

As the discussion on my Volvic Post has shown, Sponsorship isn’t straightforward. Here is an interesting piece I found on the Fundraising Institute of Australia Blog .

 In an article on 14 April in The Australian Financial Review it is noted that the ‘commercial path’ was rejected in favour of naming the Melbourne Theatre Company’s new theatre after the company’s founder.  Naming rights have become increasingly popular as a way of recognising benefaction – but there can be hidden risks which may relate to organisational reputation and potential conflicts of interest. As some North American institutions have found, physically gouging out a benefactor’s name from the material fabric of a building is messy and unsightly.  

Is there a need for less ostentation and a greater reflection of true benefaction without personal or corporate gratification

Its something we all have to deal with, whether its the title rights to a sponsor for a campaign or the naming of a new wing in a hospital.