Skip to main content

Five Questions Nonprofit Cause Marketers Need Answers to From Potential Sponsors

Smart Money magazine does a monthly feature called “10 Things X Won’t Tell You.” In May 2011 it was ‘10 Things Fund-Raisers Won’t Tell You.’ The point of the feature is that people and organizations have their own self interest that might not always coincide with yours.

For instance, in this article number three was “It’s scary what we know about you.”

It’s a great premise, but I won’t be as cynical. Instead, here’s five things that causes ought to ask of and about potential sponsors before they ink a deal.
  1. Do You Really Care About My Cause Or Is This Just a Business Deal? Causes naturally would prefer a sponsor’s money and heart, but they’re sophisticated enough to know that it might not always play out that way. So it’s better to know where the sponsor stands at the outset.
  2. What Do You Do That Could Embarrass Me? If you pollute the headwaters of the Yangtze or employ child labor, or bribe high government officials, as a cause I want to know that beforehand. It may mean that I’ll call the deal off. But at the very least I’ll listen to your side of it before deciding.
  3. What’s the Best Way to Interact With You? How do you want to hear from me and my cause? Phone? Email? Text? Twitter? Pigeon? This seems like a trifle among weightier questions, but this relationship ought to be based on trust and an open exchange of information. The cause has to know how best to do that right from the start.  
  4. What Are Your Metrics for Success From Our Partnership? What Are Your Boss’s? As a cause I want you my partner to look good. So I want to know how we can meet your expectations and the expectations of the people you report to.
  5. Where Do You See This Going? Is this a date? Are we living together waiting for something better? Is this a starter marriage? A golden anniversary in the making? Any of these answers are OK, so long as the cause feels much the same way
Tomorrow’s post: “Five Questions Sponsors Need Answers to From Potential Nonprofit Partners.”
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
11 comments
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more