Diluted Donations

The Bingham Canyon Mine in the southwest corner of the Salt Lake Valley in Utah where I live is said to be the deepest open-pit mine in the world. So deep you can see it from space. On the lip of the pit they have a visitor’s center along with spotting scopes to look into the void and at the mining activity. (The photo at left was taken from the International Space Station).

The mine, owned by Kennecott and its corporate parent Rio Tinto, charges a modest vehicle entrance fee that goes to the Kennecott Utah Copper Visitor’s Center Charitable Foundation, a 501(c)(3) private foundation which divvies it up the proceeds among local charities. There’s also a gift shop in the visitor’s center and proceeds from the sales of items there also benefits the Foundation.

The Foundation’s board, comprised of community members who serve without compensation, gets together annually to divvy up the proceeds among local charities which apply for grants. The year 2010 was a record year for the Foundation, it donated $186,000. To 106 local charities!

I’ve done the division and that amounts to an average of $1754.71 per charity. Except it’s not even that much since a few get larger grants than the average. The 2008 990, for instance, shows that the largest local food bank got $18,256. The local Volunteers of America chapter got $10,000 and the St. Vincent de Paul Center got $15,500, meaning there a lot of other local charities that got $1,000 or $500.

I’m not trying to paint Kennecott as a miserly corporate giver. On the contrary Kennecott is fairly generous corporate donor giving about $1 million per year apart from the Kennecott Utah Copper Visitor’s Center Charitable Foundation.

Kennecott is also the largest taxable entity in the Salt Lake Valley. Between taxes, wages and benefits, the company puts $900 million into the local economy. Moreover, by itself the mine produces 25 percent of the refined US copper production, 7 percent of the country’s refined gold, 10 percent of its refined silver and 23 percent of its molybdenum. Tiffany and Walmart buy their gold from Kennecott because on balance they think it’s the most responsibly-mined gold in the world, although local and national critics disagree.

The tax money is equalized among government entities and school districts across the Valley. In other words, the homeless shelter that receives money from local city governments probably benefited more financially from Kennecott’s taxation than from the grant they got from the Bingham Canyon Mine Visitor’s Center Foundation.

My question is, why does the Board divide its grant money so broadly? Why don’t they pick just one or maybe two recipients a year to receive the whole sum? The winning charity or charities would then be out of the running for another grant the next 50 years or so.

We all know that charities are hurting these days, but not many of them are going to miss $500 or $1,000, or even $1754.71, especially since they probably paid someone to write the grant.

By the same token, which of those 106 charities couldn’t figure out a way to effectively deploy a one-time grant of $186,000?

Batting Your Eyelashes at Prescription Drug Cause Marketing

I’m a little chary about making sweeping pronouncements, but I believe I've just seen the first cause marketing promotion in the U.S. involving a prescription drug. The drug is from Allergan and it’s called Latisse , “the first and only FDA-approved prescription treatment for inadequate or not enough eyelashes.” The medical name for this condition is hypotrichosis. Latisse is lifestyle drug the way Viagra or Propecia are. That is, no one’s going to die (except, perhaps, of embarrassment) if their erectile dysfunction or male pattern baldness or thin eyelashes go untreated. Which means the positioning for a product like Latisse is a little tricky. Allergan could have gone with the sexy route as with Viagra or Cialis and showed lovely women batting their new longer, thicker, darker eyelashes. But I’ll bet that approach didn’t test well with women. (I’m reminded of a joke about the Cialis ads from a comedian whose name I can’t recall. He said, “Hey if my erection lasts longer than

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to

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 Marketing

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