Cause Marketing

Everybody has their wish list for President Barack Obama. This has been true of U.S. presidents since at least the time of President Andrew Jackson 180 years ago when people would walk up to the ‘People’s House’ as Jackson called it knock on the door and petition the great populist directly. Speaking as a cause marketer, here’s my wish list for President Obama, expressed in an open letter.   Dear President Obama: You have much to do in the opening days of your administration. But I hope you’ll carve out a little bit of your prodigious energy to think for a moment about a cause marketing, which I define as: “a relationship that bridges cause and commerce in ways that benefit both parties.” Like many others, I have wishes and hopes for your administration. As a cause marketer, three stand out. 1). Please make cause marketing donations tax deductible. Doing so would almost certainly boost consumer spending. This has been proposed by Professors Anup Malani and M. Todd Hende...

Anup Malani and M. Todd Henderson , two professors at the University of Chicago Law School, proposed in the March 10, 2008 issue of Forbes magazine that individuals be allowed tax deductions for the donations made when they buy products that generate a donation to a charitable cause. Here’s what they say: “We think the tax law should be changed to equalize the deduction shareholders get for corporate and personal contribution. Individuals should also be allowed to deduct donations embedded in consumer products. Firms are increasingly doing good because shareholders and consumers want them to, and taxes should not favor one form of doing good over another.” Why? “Consumer charity is inefficient under our present tax code. If you pay $15 for a pound of fair-trade coffee instead of $10 for regular coffee, you can’t claim a deduction for the $5 difference. The additional cost is a nondeductible donation. Let me be perfectly upfront and say that I owe both these lawyers a wet, sloppy kiss. ...