Skip to main content

How Inefficient Charities Can Spoil Your Cause Marketing

The issue of Time magazine currently on newsstands is all about cancer, including a story on cancer research charities called 'Check Your Charity.' One charity highlighted in the article, called the National Breast Cancer Research Charity, made me do a double-take. Time reports that it took $12.7 million in 2009, and spent 52 percent on fundraising. The reporter’s lead says a lot; “It's not that the National Breast Cancer Research Center is a scam….”

What gave me the double-take was that National Breast Cancer Research Center sounds so much like The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the New York nonprofit which took in $30.2 million in revenue in 2009 and spent a scant 5.9 percent on fundraising.

The phrase ‘cancer research’ has become a marketing conceit. Put the words together and you have fundraising magic. But it sucks to be a well-proven charity like The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, when a less efficient charity can invoke the same magic words.

"I shudder when I look at how many groups have 'cancer research' in their names," Time quotes Greg Simon, a board member of FasterCures, which works to improve medical research. "The general public is throwing its money away."

What's The Breast Cancer Research Foundation to do?

They plainly recognize they have a challenge. The front page of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation website touts receiving a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator for the ninth consecutive year 'above the fold,' as they say. It also calls out a pie chart that shows that nearly 91 percent of funds go to cancer research and awareness, a very high number. The front page of the website also informs us that The Breast Cancer Research Foundation is also the only breast cancer charity to receive an A+ rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy.

What else could The Breast Cancer Research Foundation do?

They could certainly go to their cause marketing partners like Sketchers above and ask them to carve out a little space that says, in effect, ‘The Breast Cancer Research Foundation is the most efficient breast cancer research charity around.’

Although sponsors oftentimes take a ‘you get what you get’ approach to their charity partners when advertising their cause marketing sponsorships, here is a case when it’s in their best interest to promote the efficiency of their partner charity.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Part 2: How Chili's Used Cause-Related Marketing to Raise $8.2 million for St. Jude

[Bloggers Note: In this second half of this post I discuss the nuts and bolts of how Chili's motivates support from its employees and managers and how St. Jude 'activates' support from Chili's. Read the first half here.] How does St. Jude motivate support from Chili’s front line employees and management alike? They call it ‘activation’ and they do so by the following: They share stories of St. Jude patients who were sick and got better thanks to the services they received at the hospital. Two stories in particular are personal for Chili’s staff. A Chili’s bartender in El Dorado Hills, California named Jeff Eagles has a younger brother who was treated at St. Jude. In both 2005 and 2006 Eagles was the campaign’s biggest individual fundraiser. John Griffin, a manager at the Chili’s in Conway, Arkansas had an infant daughter who was treated for retinoblastoma at St. Jude. They drew on the support Doug Brooks… the president and CEO of Brinker International, Chili’s parent co...

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude. The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos. There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again wi...

Cause-Related Marketing with Customer Receipts

Walgreens and JDRF Right now at Walgreens…the giant pharmacy and retail store chain with more than 5,800 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico… they’re selling $1 paper icons for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). This is an annual campaign and I bought one to gauge how it’s changed over the years. (Short list… they don’t do the shoe as a die cut anymore; the paper icon is now an 8¾ x 4¼ rectangle. Another interesting change; one side is now in Spanish). The icon has a bar code and Jacob, the clerk, scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and you’re entered into a drawing for $10,000 between now and the end of September 2007. I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. At a regional seafood restaurant they give me a code that garner...