Cause Marketing

Today I profile two cause marketing efforts that use art as a vehicle to fundraise on behalf of two different nonprofits. The first, from the Alden Keene Cause Marketing Database, is sponsored by The New Yorker magazine. When you buy the cover art from Jan. 25, 2010, an evocative piece called “The Resurrection of the Dead” by Frantz Zephirin , The New Yorker will donate profits from print sales to Partners in Health , a charity based in Boston serving health care needs in Haiti, Malawi, Peru, Rwanda and elsewhere. The prints start at $125 and range up to $445. There's a lot of room in those price points for profit depending on whether or not The New Yorker and/or Zephirin takes a cut. Zephirin’s home was in Mariani, very near the epicenter of the devastating Jan 12, 2010 earthquake. It’s admirable how quickly The New Yorker put together this promotion. The three characters in the doorway are guede , spirits who guard the space between life and death. In that way they’re simila...

About five years ago I was tasked with finding a national children’s charity that was well-managed, well-regarded, and necessary. It had to meet a number of stringent standards of effectiveness in achieving its mission and demonstrate efficient stewardship of its resources. It also had to have a good name and ‘heart.’ That is, even given all those data-driven measures, it also had to be a charity with genuine emotional appeal. I found all that and more in the Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) in Bloomington, Indiana. I flew to Indiana for a meeting and to my delight discovered an organization led and staffed by pleasant, honorable people. It was a little like going to the Grand Canyon for the splendid views and finding a Michelin 3-star restaurant there. As a consultant I’ve never done work for COTA. But when anyone asks me to recommend a top-notch children’s charity, I tell them about COTA with the fervor of an evangelist. It really is a terrific charity. Now I’m please...