Cause Marketing

For the last 10 years or so it seems like every other business leader I talk has an idea for a business that will funnel profits to a charity, while every charity leader I know wishes s/he had a for-profit venture that spun out loads of cash. Examples of both abound. National Geographic Magazine is a benefit of membership in the not-for-profit National Geographic Society. But almost everything else—their catalog, their television shows, their travel tours—are for-profit business enterprises; enterprises on which National Geographic pays taxes. A recent example of a company meant to funnel profits to nonprofit endeavors comes from my own hometown. Members of the billionaire Jon M. Huntsman family have acquired the high-end Sotheby’s real estate franchise in the luxury enclaves of Sun Valley , Idaho and Jackson Hole , Wyoming . (The splendid photo of the Grand Tetons comes from JT Palmer Photography). Profits from the franchise will go to the Huntsman Cancer Center he...