How Nonprofits Can Stop a Zombie Apocalypse

Tag Archive: nonprofits

How Nonprofits Can Stop a Zombie Apocalypse

Written on October 27, 2011 in Cause Practices

I love zombie films.

I can’t get enough of them, especially around Halloween when the shadows from the leafless trees take on ominous shapes. Yikes!

While you may not share my love for the semi-dead, you might agree with this: most of us are surrounded by these mute, will-less, dumb, sometimes evil and dangerous brutes everyday.

The zombies stalking nonprofits are the people and situations they face daily that threaten their success and risk plunging them into a zombie apocalypse.

It’s scary stuff. Fortunately, there’s help thanks to my extensive zombie cinematic background and training.

One of my favorite zombie movies is Zombieland, which has a long list of rules for survival, shared throughout the film by the main character, Columbus.

Eight of these rules are critical to your nonprofit’s survival. Ignore them at your own risk.

1. Cardio. The calorically-challenged end up as zombie food because they can’t outrun these monsters. Your cause too will also meet a horrible end if you’re not prepared to go the distance and persevere year after year. Success in anything doesn’t happen overnight. It requires endurance. Don’t let your cause fall prey to the zombies just because you weren’t up to the challenge of going long.

Appropriate Training: Make a commitment to something new that will make a real difference to your cause and stick with it. It could be updating your technology infrastructure, learning social media or – my personal favorite – giving cause marketing a try.

2. Double Tap. What a waste to die at the hands of a zombie just because you were too lazy and didn’t shoot them twice. Just like it would be a waste to give up on a program or project after the first try because someone said no, a company pulled out or because the a campaign had mixed or poor results. Like W. C. Fields said: “Try, and if you fail, try again. Then quit. No sense being a fool about it.” But try again! Don’t give into the zombies and just give in after one shot.

Appropriate training: Pick an event, program or project that you think is worth a second shot and go for it.

3. Kill with Efficiency. Why bother reloading a gun when a nice, heavy toilet cover or rolling pin is handy? Don’t focus on the preferred or cool way to get the job done. Focus on getting things done. Everyone wants to do online giving, Facebook Like promotions, and land trendy partnerships with cool retailers like Apple and The Gap. But what’s at hand for cause marketing is easy to execute point-of-sale or purchase-triggered donation program with local retailers. They’re not always sexy, but they get the job done (raising money, increasing awareness). Zombies hate that!

Appropriate training: Take a good look at all the things your nonprofit does. What are your bread and butter programs that produce every year. Can you enhance their success or replicate another success from them?

4. Beware of Bathrooms. Confining yourself to a small space is not a good way to fend off the zombie hordes. A nonprofit that puts 100% of its time into cause marketing or events or grants is cornering themselves in a bathroom. It’s small, limiting and doesn’t get you to where you want to go – unless you really have to go. Don’t confine yourself to one thing, regardless of how good it is. Spread yourself out!

Appropriate training: Start exploring new directions for your nonprofit and set one new course before the end of the year.

5. Get a Kickass Partner. Loners just don’t last very long in zombie films. Sigh. Doing fundraising by yourself – which can happen even if you’re surrounded by many others (AKA zombies) – can be equally short-lived. I had kick-ass partners in Joanna MacDonald who helped me write Cause Marketing for Dummies. David Hessekiel and Megan Strand at Cause Marketing Forum are my kick-ass partners in everything cause-related. John Haydon is my tech and Facebook guru and truly my Tallahassee, although he acts more like Witchita. Regardless, I have people I can count on. So should you.

Appropriate training: Look around you. Would you describe your colleagues and partners as better candidates for “double taps” than kickass partners? It’s time to reevaluate your relationships.

6. Check the Back Seat. It happens all the time in zombie movies: someone gets killed in their car because they didn’t check the back seat. Stupid way to go. To make sure you don’t meet the same end, watch for these nasty surprises.

A 100-slide PowerPoint presentation that no one at the meeting you’re going to wants to see.
A bureaucrat from your office or board that will spend a whole meeting with a company blathering about your nonprofit’s mission and not saying a word about the potential opportunity for both partners.

Appropriate training: Double check the things you do everyday or before fundraising calls. Are they helpful, useful? Or are they just obstacles to your success.

7. Opportunity knocks. One of the lessons of Zombieland is that opportunities in life just don’t come knocking. You still have to get off your butt and open the door! That’s how I feel about Halloween and even zombie events for fundraising and cause marketing. I promise if you open this door you’ll find opportunity, not zombies.

Appropriate training: It’s too late this year to plan a Halloween fundraiser, but it’s a perfect time to plan one for next year. Here are some ideas on how others are using Halloween to give back.

8. God Bless Rednecks. Because they have all the guns and ammo you need kill zombies! Fundraising is a red-blooded business that raises most of its money from regular people just like you and me – especially when it comes to the cause marketing programs I specialize in. A few coins in a canister. A buck at the register. Fifty cents from the sale of a soda, sweater or meal. Regular people are the drivers behind programs that raise hundreds of millions of dollars for good causes every year.

In this zombie world of ours, they are your ultimate kickass partner.

Tags: cause marketing, fundraising, halloween, nonprofits, zombie movies, zombieland

Are Nonprofits Ready for the End of Corporate Philanthropy?

Written on May 17, 2010 in Cause Practices

24 Comments

Boston’s own Scott Beaudoin, who’s also MS&L Worldwide’s North America director of CSR and cause marketing, asked in PRWeek Insider’s blog last week is this “The End of Corporate Philanthropy?”

Scott’s prompt was Nestle SA Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe’s recent remarks that he’s against corporate philanthropy because it could lead to a misuse of funds. (I guess he had already doubled checked that the company money used for client entertainment was all well spent.)

What Peter and Scott are in favor of are “social investments that are aligned with the business.”

Like it or not, this is the future of corporate giving for businesses large and small. Of course, this won’t be “giving” at all but rather strategic social investing. And the timing is right for several reasons.

With the drumbeat of earnings and ROI stronger than ever, companies can no longer fund generous philanthropy programs. Investment in causes, not giving, must be the mainstay if companies are to continue to play a meaningful role in addressing societal issues.
Thoughtful consumers get it. As Scott notes, “Research shows today’s stakeholders understand that companies need to be profitable but also believe they can be purposeful and profitable at the same time.”
To engage more small and medium size businesses with causes, partnerships need to be win-win as only the biggest companies can afford big budgets for philanthropy.

Reading Peter’s remarks and Scott’s post made me smile because a corporate culture focused on bottom-line benefits for both partners is my reality every day. Nestle SA has had the luxury and, thankfully, the desire to be philanthropic without the worry about the ROI on corporate giving. The restaurant chain I work with may share Nestle’s generous instincts but it lacks their capacity. Interestingly, I’ve noticed that it’s when a business is most focused on benefiting from a partnership with my nonprofit that they do the most good for my cause.

But the shift away from corporate philanthropy won’t be easy for nonprofits. Going from receiving generous handouts to having to work for your food will take a bit of getting used to.

Here are three ways nonprofits can begin the shift away from corporate philanthropy.

Embrace the brave new world. Nonprofits shouldn’t feel guilty that they have to engage businesses as, well, businesses and not donors. Remember, companies still want to make a difference, but they want to help you and society while they help themselves. Think win-win-win.

Make it easy for companies. Don’t make them feel guilty that they used to give you money and now they make you work for it. Don’t wait for them to tell YOU they need more from their partnership with you. Connect the dots so they don’t have to. Create opportunities and programs that are tailored for companies (which leads to my next point).

Start a cause marketing program. The essence of cause marketing is mutual benefit. Whether you use pinups, percentage-of-sale, licensing, cause promotion, etc. cause marketing will help reduce your dependence on corporate giving and give businesses a new way to work with you that is grounded in win-win.

Long live corporate philanthropy. It’s a little absurd to think that corporate philanthropy will just disappear. Walmart just gave $2 billion to fight hunger this past week (although I’m sure hunger causes resonate with Walmart’s core customers so there is a strategic component to the gift). Will it be reduced? Sure, perhaps a lot. But it will always be there in some form so don’t throw away your tin can just yet.

But a world with less corporate philanthropy is here. The challenge for nonprofits is to adapt to the new reality. What seems like the end of corporate philanthropy will actually be a new beginning of opportunity for nonprofits that are up for the challenge.

End or beginning. Which one will your nonprofit choose?

[Note: I'd like your help. I've given three ways nonprofits can begin the shift away from corporate philanthropy to corporate opportunity. What other ways can nonprofits easily and quickly make the move.]

Tags: cause marketing, corporate culture, corporate giving, corporate opportunities, corporate philanthropy, ms&l worldwide, nestle sa, non-profit organization, nonprofits, peter brabeck-letmathe, philanthropy, prweek insider's blog, scott beaudoin

Restaurant Adds Foursquare, Fundraising Advice to Menu

Written on May 5, 2010 in Location-Based Cause Marketing

6 Comments

Last week we enjoyed a sumptuous Foursquare promotion created by Boston’s own Boloco. The Foursquare Mayor Boloco Card is bursting with creativeness, spices and natural goodness, just like the food Boloco serves.

The promotion is a feast for us who are looking for ways to use geo-location services. Boloco’s efforts offer direction on how causes can create their own 4sq promotion with local businesses.

Here’s how.

Start by re-reading last week’s post. Think your nonprofit isn’t big enough to give Foursquare a try? Think again. Worried that you don’t have the technical skills to work with the geo-location site? No special skills are required. Not sure that you should be focusing on Foursquare in the first place? Read my post here.

Identify prospects to approach. Stores or restaurants with multiple locations and foot traffic are your best targets. You’ll see why soon. Boloco is a perfect example. They have 16 busy locations throughout New England. Targeting a chain with fewer locations is fine. Just adjust your expectations: fewer stores generally means fewer customers, and fewer customers means less of, well, anything you hope to get out of the partnership.

Explain how Boloco is using Foursquare. And how your promotion will work almost exactly the same way as theirs. (For all the brazen talk being “first” in new ideas, businesses secretly like when someone else has gone first!) Like Boloco, each location will have a mayor that will be feted with honors, to be determined by the store or restaurant. The reigning mayor can simply flash their 4sq mayor crown on their PDA to the store manager. (While the Boloco mayor card and offline exchange between ousted and new mayors is a great idea, it’s not necessary for the program to work.)

Add a cause component. To turn the Boloco Foursquare program into a cause marketing machine try one of these two tactics.

Cash or Inkind - Say you partner with a store or restaurant that has coats or food to donate to your organization. With their new Foursquare Mayor Gives Back program the winning mayor of each location chooses the nonprofit that gets the lion’s share of the donation. It’s a great way to involve customers in the giving and to educate them about the company’s good deeds and organizations that need their support.
Point-of-Sale - Pinups are a great way to raise money and promote the Foursquare Mayor Gives Back program. Selling pinups at the register promotes the program with customers and raises money that can be awarded to your cause by the reigning mayor on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Combining Foursquare with pinups introduces 4sq to customers who aren’t currently using the geo-location service, but might with a little encouragement and incentive. For all the merits of the Boloco promotion it’s focused on Foursquare users, not in on boarding new users. Adding pinups to the mix raises money for the cause and alerts more customers to the promotion, which means more Foursquare users vying to become the next mayor.

The Foursquare Mayor Boloco Card is a great starting point to launch a cause marketing initiative. Nonprofits are rewarded with exposure, inkind goods or cash. Retailers can better activate their 4sq promotion with consumers and potentially earn their halo by supporting a good cause.

Like restaurant leftovers, I hope this second take on Boloco’s Foursquare promotion was more tasty than the first!