Cause Marketing

Remember the scene in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off when he’s rhapsodizing about the 1961 Ferrari GT California Spyder he’s been bombing around Chicago in? He says to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, “It is so choice. If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up.” Means indeed. A vintage 250 is said to set one back a cool $10 million . In a like way, if your charity brand has the means, I highly recommend that you pick up a kind of cause marketing that I’ve come to call a ‘seal campaign.’ Seal campaigns are endorsements or licensing arrangements that carry the logo or seal of a charity, usually following an audit of some kind and the payment of a fee. Think seals of approval. The one I see the most often these days is for the Forest Stewardship Council , which was founded in Bonn, Germany in 1993. The FSC has a rather complicated organizational structure, but suffice it to say that the FSC seal can be seen in dozens of countries across the globe on every kind ...

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. ...