Thanks for visiting Selfishgiving.com!  To make your visit more useful, a few comments and suggestions:

• The best way to follow my blog is is sign up for email updates.  You’ll get the latest posts sent directly to your inbox.  You can unsubscribe from the updates at any time, and I’ll never give out your email address, ever.
• My definition of cause marketing?  Cause marketing is a partnership between a nonprofit and for-profit for mutual profit.  For the nonprofit the “profit” includes visibility and money.  For the for-profit it includes enhancing favorability with consumers and driving sales.
• Under Categories, click on Cause Marketer’s Journal.  This is really the heart of my blog as it captures my experiences as a cause marketer at a Boston hospital.  While I started my blog in December 2005 by writing about a lot of things related to cause marketing–and I still do–my main interest is the things I do everyday to raise money and build brand awareness for my nonprofit here in Boston’s South End.
• I’m happy to answer your questions and tackle your challenges.  I love when people tell me about the nonprofits they work for, the challenges they face and ask how they can use cause marketing to succeed.  I’m happy to share my experiences and advice.  Just leave me a comment on any one of my posts or drop me an email at joe@selfishgivng.com.  Just remember one thing: I’m not a full-time blogger.  If I ever am I promise to answer your questions at your convenience.  Until then, please be patient.
• I get lots of questions about where to read more about cause marketing.  After all, my blog is really a nuts and bolts primer geared toward frontline corporate fundraisers in small to mid-size nonprofits.  There are many other good perspectives on the field.  Start with the blogs listed on my blogroll.  The prolific Paul Jones, who practiced cause marketing for many years at Children’s Miracle Network, at Cause-Related Marketing is especially helpful.  (Tell him Joe sent you.  Be sure to ask how he blogs so much AND keeps his lawn so manicured.  Request a picture.).  You should also check out Cause Marketing Forum, which has a web site rich in content and hosts a wonderful annual conference for cause marketers.  I also find an occasional nugget in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Ad Age.
• Some people have asked why I gave my blog the rather irreverent name of Selfishgiving.com.  It’s meant as no offense to the practice of cause marketing or philanthropy, both of which I hold in high regard.  But cause marketing is giving with an agenda, so why not call it what it is?  The name also reflects my no-nonsense approach to raising money and building brand.  Lastly, the blogosphere prizes frankness and Selfish Giving delivers.  That said, if you bruise easily, you might consider reading elsewhere.

That’s all for now.  Thanks again for reading Selfishgiving.com.  I started writing it because I was tired of circulating emails to everyone I know on things I had read about cause marketing, programs I was impressed with and projects I was working on.  It felt natural to start a blog and to share all these things in one place.  I hope it’s as useful and fun for you as it has been for me. 

I owe a few people a huge debt for making my blog possible.

My wife and kids who give me the time and space to work on it when I should be with them.

My boss who pretends it doesn’t exist.

The cause and event marketing team at my work that is so sick of me talking about it and bringing it up in external meetings and turning their drops of sweat and tears into polished posts for my own shameless self-promotion and entertainment that they must want to run me over with a bus.  Hey, thanks gang.

My web-man Ross Chapman who designed my latest site and answers all my stupid questions.  Some say for eighty-bucks an hour he has to be helpful and patient.  I disagree.