Corporate Citizenship: It’s Just Good Business

ConeInc.Com is among my favorite websites. It should be among yours, too. Cone is one of the most respected cause marketing groups in business. Some say they invented cause-related marketing, back when Carol Cone was at the helm.

Carol has left the company to pursue other interests, but Cone remains a hugely valuable resource for data and findings on American attitudes towards corporate citizenship. Drilling through their website, from the home page to Corporate Responsibility, to the link for “Shared Responsibility,” you’ll find an informative PDF titled “Who’s Responsible?”

Here’s the summary:

Amid the stats and the stories, companies are realizing checkbook philanthropy and checkbox responsibility will not suffice. Dated approaches to addressing social and environmental issues are too formulaic, too reactive and won’t turn the tide on corporate trust. Companies must proactively deal with critical business issues while engaging with and addressing escalating expectations of key stakeholders. Companies are changing the way they approach burgeoning social and environmental challenges because today, it’s difficult to assert where a company’s responsibility begins, where it ends and who is ultimately accountable for solving the issues we collectively face.

And here’s a screenshot of a chart from the document:

The data points are undeniable.  The American public expects good citizenship from corporate America. Over a broad range of topics, the trend of opinion is overwhelming. 

And, the source is trustworthy. According to the site, “The 2010 Cone Shared Responsibility Study presents the findings of an online survey conducted April 8-9, 2010 by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) among a representative U.S. sample of 1,045 adults comprising 507 men and 538 women 18 years of age and older. The margin of error associated with a sample of this size is ± 3%.”

So, for businesses, what’s next? It’s clear that corporate resources devoted to identifying, tracking, and mapping these sorts of data would not be wasted. Customers, employees, and the public in general are important stakeholders in corporations. Paying attention to public opinion is not Pollyannaism. It’s not “playing to the polls,” as they say in politics.

No, it’s just good business.

Go to ConeInc.Com for more insights like these.

Marketing is MOST important when the economy is down.

It’s not counter-intuitive – it’s true: When the phone stops ringing, it’s time to ratchet up the outreach a notch.

CauseWare can help.

The mission of CauseWare is three-fold: Serving charities, educating donors, and helping employers with charitable programs.

When working with charities, CauseWare focuses on small to medium sized organizations that do not have the budget or staff to plan and execute excellent communication and marketing strategies. Simply put, the mission at that level is to “Bring the tools of corporate marketing to America’s charities.”

It’s a sad fact of American life that a very few charities have the resources to attract and keep donors, or to forge relationships with corporations, for workplace giving, or for cause related marketing.

CauseWare aims to change that.

CauseWare is positioned as a low-cost solution for medium-sized charities. At CauseWare, our career-long commitment has been to bring affordable solutions to charities and non-profits.

There are many low-cost and no-cost channels available to make and strengthen the bond between charities, donors, volunteers, and corporations. Charities only need help in identifying the best, learning how to use them and developing strategies that are efficient and effective.

Please feel free to direct others to my blog at CauseWare.BlogSpot.Com. There’s a lot of free advice here – some of it pretty good, if I do say so myself. Soon, I’ll also have services, mission, etc., posted at CauseWare.Net.

Crunching Numbers

In May, the Chronicle of Philanthropy released "Fund Raising 2010: How Big Charities Are Faring in the First Quarter". According to the data, giving to some charities was down 20%, 40% -- as much as 85%.

On the other hand some charities were up by 200% to over 500%.

What gives? Why the broad difference?

Well, from the 30,000 foot view, it looks like the big gains were made by charities delivering international relief. The earthquake in Haiti might figure large in why some charities increased donations so much over a year's time.

Haitian relief was immediate, and very public. And aid remains much needed. Port-au-Prince remains "stuck in limbo," according to a May 29 article in the New York Times. 

But what does your organization -- or your favorite charity -- do that provides immediate and much needed services or programs? While perhaps not as public or dramatic as a catastrophic earthquake or flooding, hundreds of thousands of American charities deliver, on a daily basis food to the unfed, shelter to the homeless, educational opportunities to the underserved, companionship to the unwanted -- the list goes on and on.

It's an unfortunate fact that charities and other non-profits in America share something in common with American business. That is the need for marketing.

What makes your organization stand out? What is the immediate need you address? What are your success stories? What is the picture of need?

These questions (and more) are what you need to be discussing. Answers to the questions will lead to differentiators, which, in turn, help define your brand.

Want some help? Shoot me an email at RGondella@CauseWare.Net.