Funding Your Startup or New Charity

One of the most confounding charitable endeavors I was ever involved in was figuring out how to fund a startup charity that made grants to other charities. HelpUsAdopt.org, founded in 2007, is in a similar boat. The 501(c)(3) foundation grants would-be adoptive parents up to $15,000 for adoption expenses.

In short, they raise money to give it away.

Included in their fundraising mix are gala-type events, annual donor solicitation, and a small catalog of products including the necklace and bracelets modeled in the ad at the left by actress Nia Vardalos, of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame.

The necklace Nia is wearing in this ad from the June 2011 Redbook magazine goes for $225 and the bracelets for $35 each. The HelpUsAdopt.org store also currently sells a brown wooden bead necklace for $95 and a tote bag for $20.

The nonprofit fundraising world is set up to favor established charities, and with good reason. IRS figures show that 16 percent of nonprofit charities that filed a 990 tax return in 2000, didn’t file one in 2005. Since 501(c)(3)s don't have to file a tax return if they take in less than $25,000 not filing means that they either went out of business or that they couldn't raise money.

As a consequence, if your organization is less than five years old, grantmaking foundations seldom gaze your way. Knowing this, grant writers often keep themselves aloof from new charities. Corporate donations are unlikely, although not impossible, to secure for nubes. Bequests, which are a big slice of the revenue pie for established charities are really rare for rookie charities. New charities, therefore, tend to rely on major donors until they can get their feet under them.

HelpUsAdopt.org seemingly has five major donors who came in at the $15,000 level, including the founders, Becky and Kipp Fawcett. So that’s $75,000. Four more came in at between $5,000 to $10,000. So figure $7,500 times four which adds in another $30,000, bringing a grand total of approximately $105,000 from nine major donors. Events and smaller donors brought in the rest of the $300,000 HelpUsAdopt.org has given away since 2007.

It appears to me that as a new charity HelpUsAdopt.org is relying on the jewelry to sell. For my part, I’m chary of such a strategy.

If you sell stuff, someone has to keep inventory on hand. The jewelry is sold online only, so someone has to drive traffic to the website. Then the website has to covert traffic to sales. Someone has to fulfill orders. And if it doesn’t sell someone has to eat it all. It appears to me that HelpUsAdopt.org is the entity on the hook for all this.

All of this would be OK if HelpUsAdopt.org was 'all benefits company' like Newman’s Own, which sells stuff in order to make grants to charities. It would be OK if HelpUsAdopt.org was merely doing a cause marketing deal of the type that Susan G. Komen does where someone else takes the risk of putting the pink ribbon on garden trowel or warm-up suit and selling it. But HelpUsAdopt.org is not Newman’s Own or a Susan G. Komen licensee. It’s a straight-ahead 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity.

I hope I’m wrong about HelpUsAdopt.org’s foray into product direct sales. They have a worthy cause. But I don’t think I am.

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...

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...

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor...

Cause Marketing

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