Nothing Komen for the Cure does surprises me anymore.

They sell deep-fried chicken to raise money to cure breast cancer. They sue other nonprofits that use “for the cure” in any variation in their name. Now, they’re flexing their muscle and shutting off the funding to Planned Parenthood.

For Komen, it’s just another day being a big, arrogant SOB that has swallowed too much of its own public relations and is drunk with power and eager to show its fight.

Part of me grudgingly admires Komen. Heck, I tell nonprofits all the time they should operate more like businesses. And that’s what Komen is doing. If they were a for-profit company instead of a nonprofit we’d be applauding their actions, or at least ignoring them. After all, we live in a country where success and money wash every sin clean. And Komen has plenty of soap to spare.

The challenge is that Komen is a nonprofit but their walking and talking like the Standard Oil of our time. I hope they’re headed for a crash, or at least a painful breakup.

But that’s not up to me. It’s up to you. (I say you because I’ve never supported Komen and I never will. I don’t even talk about their cause marketing much except to be critical of it. Yeah, I’m grinding my ax when I can.)

You gave them their swagger with your sweat, support and money. You created a monster. Not that you care. You’ll turn a blind eye and find comfort in the stories of sadness, hope, womanhood, courage and success that define the Komen experience.

That’s just what Komen wants. Come walk season, you’ll still be wearing pink.

You need a new narrative that puts cause above Komen. A true supporter is someone who is willing to defend her cause from the people who would hurt it, even if they are within the cause. This new story needs to be about accountability and direction that speaks to the breast cancer organization you want.

If you’re happy with deep fried cause marketing, brand witch hunts and punishing poor women, congratulations, you have the organization you want.

But if you want something else: wipe away your tears, dump the pink and find your angry voice and tell Komen to change their ways, or you’ll change yours.

If you’re like most people, you get most of your inspiration from people who are quietly changing the world each and every day. They’re not on the front page of the newspaper, and they’re not mingling with the Gates and Buffets of the world. They’re everyday people like you and me who have shown extraordinary commitment to making this world better than when they found it.

The CTK Foundation “Heroes with a Heart” Grant Award asks YOU to nominate a “Hero with a Heart,” and give them a chance to win $5,000 – a simple thanks for the hard work that they do.

What are the details of the “Heroes with a Heart” Grant?

Here’s an overview of awards the CTK Foundation will offer and details on how you can nominate your Hero:

Go to www.communitytech.net/foundation to nominate your Hero with a Heart today!

Good luck, Heroes!

I’m trying to learn more about volunteering and employee engagement initiatives for businesses that want more than the transactional cause marketing campaigns I specialize in. These are the days when I wish employee volunteering expert Chris Jarvis lived closer to me and not in the home of terrible baseball, Toronto.

The employee engagement side of cause marketing is mostly new to me. Sure, employee volunteers – upwards to 1,200 people  for a two day event – were a big part of the Halloween event I produced in Boston for five years. But organizations focused on this area are taking employee volunteering to a whole new level with online platforms that bring causes into cubicles.

This week, Los Angeles based Causecast announced its new Employee Impact Platform, which helps companies promote and manage workforce volunteering. This can range from highlighting volunteer and community opportunities, to making matchable donations, to sharing news and updates on the company’s commitment to and progress addressing social initiatives.

Causecast's Employee Impact Platform

Causecast is positioning its EIP as the first full-service platform for employee engagement.

The arrival of Causescast, a for-profit company, into a space that has largely been led by nonprofits such as VolunteerMatch and HandsOn Network, may highlight the value of employee engagement programs both as an opportunity and as a business. In a conversation I had with Ryan Scott, CEO and Founder of Causecast, back in October, he stressed that his for-profit company was better positioned to meet company demands for a state-of-the-art engagement platform.

In a note to me yesterday, Ryan said, “I‘m leveraging the power of capitalism to transform the way we build social change movements. People are pushing for this kind of change  - Occupy Wall Street being a prime example – but have no tools to make it happen.  Effectively engaging employees in a shared company social mission can drive a movement from the inside, one that has the power to create measurable impact around social issues.”

At least one person agrees. “Causecast goes right to the heart of this problem by providing a solution that employee advocates can understand and use that doesn’t require IT support to execute,” says Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group.

Despite HandsOn Network mobilizing over 30 million volunteer hours last year and VolunteerMatch’s impressive list of clients, which include McDonald’s and Walmart, cause marketing through online employee engagement is as new to most companies as health insurance was to them a century ago. Many large companies have yet to formalize their volunteer programs with online solutions that can compete for employees’ attention like a work deadline and Facebook can.

I’m curious if Causescast and others can convince mid-sized companies with large workforces – an area of mammoth opportunity for employee engagement providers – to invest in an online volunteering platform for employees. While I’m a big believer in the power of FREE! for cause marketing, this is one area where companies will have to pay for play.

Only time will tell, but if adoption of traditional cause marketing tactics (e.g. point-of-sale, purchased or action triggered donation programs) are a bellweather for volunteering platforms it could be a long, rocky road for the folks that aim to corner America’s cubicles for a cause.

The first step in cause marketing success is an asset analysis. I talk about it here in this video I sat for at Blogworld late last year.

To learn more about starting with an asset analysis and the two other steps needed for cause marketing success, check out my new post at Razoo.com’s Inspiring Generosity blog:

Getting Started with Cause Marketing, Easy as 1-2-3

I just started writing for Razoo.com and you can read my weekly post on Tuesdays. My first post with them just appeared last week.

7 Things Nonprofits Should Focus on in 2012

Razoo.com has some other great regular bloggers, including John Haydon and Geoff Livingston. I hope you’ll check out their regular posts as well.

Sign Up for the Selfish Giving Newsletter

Two weeks ago I wrote about Maggie Keenan, a graduate of my Six Figure Cause Marketing Program and happy owner of Cause Marketing for Dummies. She’s launched a pinup program with her KFC and Dairy Queen stores in southeast Georgia that’s doing very well.

I’ve asked Maggie to stop by and update us in the comments section of this post.

Maggie was kind enough to record this interview with some of the key people involved in the program. These wonderful supporters talk about so many of the things that are important to a successful cause marketing program I just had to share it with you!

• A sincere commitment to the program’s success.
• A recognition that local businesses should support local causes.
• Each store involved in the program has a tangible goal to achieve.
• Each location has an in-store ambassador to motivate and track employee success.
• Store managers volunteered at a Salvation Army to see firsthand where the money they raise will go.
• The importance of THE ASK. Customers won’t support the program unless you ask them!
• Incentives for employees as a thank you for their efforts.

This bumper courtesy of my friends at Cauzoom.

Support local causes and here’s why all cause marketing is local!

Have a great weekend!

This is a guest post from Bob Jones of Give.mobi. For an overview of their service check out my post There She Blows! Cause Marketing, Mobile Gifts Surface with Give.mobi.

You’ve probably heard about the successful partnership between Chili’s Grill & Bar and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This longstanding cause marketing pact has raised tens of millions of dollars with its Create-A-Pepper to Fight Childhood Cancer campaign.

This year alone the campaign raised $5 million.

A new feature of this year’s campaign was a QR code on coloring sheets and table tents that took smartphone toting patrons to an information and donation page.  Including a QR code on a major campaign such as this one is impressive enough, but here’s the real news: patrons scanned the QR code a whopping 291,000 times!

Critics of QR codes take note: consumers know what QR codes are and how to access their online content.

“By incorporating the QR codes into this charitable campaign, it was a great way to relate to Chili’s tech-savvy guests while giving St. Jude supporters another, easily accessible way to donate to the charity,” said Chili’s spokeswoman Julie Flowers.

While I admire the partnership and the creativity of including a QR code, Chili’s and St. Jude missed the mark on maximizing donations.

When scanned, the QR code took the user to this page.

Click on “3 Donate Online to Make a Difference” and you go to this page.

The missed opportunity is obvious. This is where the user hits a wall. Would you want fill in all these boxes on your phone?  The giving opportunity is DOA. 291,000 scans, but I bet you could count the number of donations made on this page with your hands and toes.

There’s a better solution: Give.mobi.

The donor can easily make a gift with PayPal, credit or debit card or a simple pledge option. In each case, you can make a donation in seconds because Give.mobi delivers a mobile experience that closes the gift. You also get real-time tracking of every donation by location so you can keep tabs on which restaurants are leading the pack, or lagging.

QR codes for cause marketing are a great idea. But without a mobile-ready donation page to make giving easy, potential donors will navigate their giving elsewhere.

I’m always looking for the latest information on cause marketing, sponsorship and corporate partnerships. Fortunately, there are a bunch of new resources that are making my job a lot easier.

Cause Marketing Forum has three new resources and a webinar TOMORROW you should sign up for.

• A daily newsletter that looks at new cause marketing campaigns.
• A new Facebook whitepaper on cause marketing on the largest social platform. A must read!
• Statistics every cause marketing should know. You should know these as well as you know my URL.
• Tune in for the webinar on Tuesday: Cause Marketing on Facebook: Truths, Tips & Trends from Pioneers

I’ve talked a lot about the coming of mobile payments and their intersection with cause marketing on both my blog and at speaking appearances. It’s something I’m really excited about. But up to now there hadn’t been any sign in the water of this huge beast that would change giving and cause marketing with the same force The Whale shook Captain Ahab on the Pequod.

But the waters are parting and I see something rising: Give.mobi.

Developed by Tulsa, Oklahoma based CharityCall, Give.mobi may be the best option yet for businesses and nonprofits that want to partner and raise money via mobile technology.

Here’s how Give.mobi works.

1. Shoppers scan a QR code which takes them to a custom giving page. The QR code can appear anywhere: on a register sign or product, in a sales flier, etc. Check out this QR code appeal from Cinnabon bakeries.

2. The first page highlights the details of the program, in Cinnabon’s case a fundraiser for anti-hunger organization Share Our Strength. Users can also easily share the campaign with friends on Twitter and Facebook.

3. Click on “Give Now” to visit the donation page. An advantage here is that you can contribute more than you could with the $5 and $10 donations common to text giving. Not sold on donating on your phone? You can make a “pledge” by entering an amount and email address so you can receive a link to donate via PayPal, credit or debit card.

 4. Once you enter a gift amount and click on “Give Now” you’ll be asked to sign-in to your Paypal account and make a gift. Of course, the process isn’t as easy if you don’t have a PayPal account.

Give.mobi isn’t free. There’s a $75 set-up fee, $39 monthly fee and the company gets 5% of collected donations. You’ll also have to pay PayPal 2.2% on donations plus 30 cents per transaction. You’re basically paying around a buck for every ten dollars you raise. I can live with that.

Does this new mobile platform work? I was impressed that Cinnabon raised $3,800 for Share Our Strength in just five days. That’s pretty good for a passive cause marketing program. The average donation was $43 and the average cost per donation was $3.40.

Cinnabon president Kat Cole is a believer: “The ability to reach out and allow patrons to donate using their mobile smartphones made a big difference.”

Give.mobi is the best option right now for mobile cause marketing. You should give it a try. Bur remember: Give.mobi will have plenty of competition in 2012 as other mobile giving platforms are rolled out.  Mobile is the future, the future of cause marketing and perhaps the future of giving.

But that doesn’t mean the right platform is right around the corner or will always be smooth sailing.

Like the legends of white whales that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick, we’ll have to chase down each new mobile development for fundraisers to see if it’s for real or a fake. But Cinnabon’s success with Share Our Strength proves that Give.mobi is not just another fish story.

Singing statues at Halloween Town! Click to watch.

At nearly $7 billion in sales, Halloween is a frighteningly successful holiday - second only to Christmas in consumer spending. But for fundraisers Jack Skellington‘s Halloween is #1.

Halloween is social. Halloween isn’t the family holiday that Thanksgiving and Christmas are. Parents parade their kids out in neighborhoods, and costume parties for all ages are everywhere. Halloween is the holiday of weak ties and you should capitalize on its casual, fun and social nature.

Halloween is packed all into one exciting night. The major holidays seem to drag on forever. But Halloween has a zombie-like following that kids and adults crave like the undead love BRAINS! Feed the need with your halloween fundraiser.

Halloween is non-denominational. You’re not stepping on any toes by having a Halloween fundraiser. It’s not a religious holiday that’s going to exclude anyone and ruffle some feathers. It’s kind of like Thanksgiving with candy instead of turkey. Most people love it!

Halloween is part of everyone’s business model these days. I’m looking at this from a cause marketing perspective and the potential for you to work with businesses. Department stores, convenience stores, party stores and supermarkets, they all sell Halloween costumes, candy and decorations. They are all potential partners for your Halloween fundraiser.

8 easy ways to get started with Halloween fundraisers

1. Seasonal Halloween stores pop up everywhere this time of year. Find out which stores setup in your area from your local chamber or town hall and plan a fundraiser. Spirit Halloween, which has 900 temporary stores from Labor Day to early November, has already raised $2.5 million for children’s hospitals this month. It’s worth looking in to.

2. Collect candy for the poor, homeless or troops abroad. The Good Scout Blog has some good suggestions on who you can help.

3. Collect food and coats. Just give people a heads up before you drop by. I participate in a great program with a local college that collects canned and packaged good for the needy on Halloween. The day before Halloween they drop off a flier letting us know when they’ll be buy for a pick up. I love giving back Halloween night!

4. Wear your cause on your sleeve. If you favor a particular cause, pick a costume that reflects it. How about a doctor or nurse from your local cancer hospital. Support the local zoo? I always wanted to see a giraffe costume! Check out this HuffPost slideshow for other ideas. You can also buy a gently used costume from Goodwill and support their mission.

5. Try reverse trick or treating. Instead of asking for treats, two Boston kids are delivering an informational card to homes to bring awareness to child labor in name-brand chocolate factories. A heavy topic for Halloween, but I bet they’ll will get people’s attention because it’s so unexpected and definitely frightening.

6. What’s stopping you from collecting money like UNICEF? If you show up at a neighbor’s door with a homemade coin canister for your favorite cause, will they really say no because you’re not toting an orange UNICEF box? Of course, you could just raise money for UNICEF.

7. Zombie walks are dead and growing! The Chronicle of Philanthropy had a good article last week on how these lurching, gory walks are becoming popular in many cities

8. If you already have a Halloween event recruit forget sponsorships and focus on cause marketing partners. You’ll raise more money. Read up on how I used cause marketing for Halloween Town.

Good luck tonight and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!