Tag Archive: point-of-sale programs

“Create-A-Sweater” Pinups Weave Bonds Between Kids, Seniors

It’s nice when you can end the week knowing you helped someone. Sharna Fulton helped me. I helped Sharna Fulton. Together we helped someone else.

Sharna helped me many years ago when she was in the sports pottery business in Atlanta and I needed a quick turnaround on a gift for my wife.

She kindly saved a husband’s life so he could be late with a gift another holiday.

I don’t remember how but we got to talking about cause marketing (maybe because I talk about it with everyone I meet even if they don’t want to), but through the years she read my blog and we talked about various programs. We even got to meet one year when she and her husband visited Boston, joining the hosptial’s Boston Marathon team at its pre-race pasta party.

We kept in touch, and continued to talk about trends in cause marketing.

Yesterday she tweeted:

Cause mktg, pin-ups, art education come together to help seniors thx to influence of @JoeWaters

The blog post she shared with me is great. You can read it for yourself, but here’s the cause marketing piece.

Students at JC Magill have signed on to our  “Create-A-Sweater” pin-up program. They’ll color, design, exhibit and sell these pin-ups at school for 1.00 each. Alternative Home Care for Seniors will, in turn, match every donation from Magill dollar for dollar up to $1,000.00. All the funds and sweaters raised will go to Gwinnett County Senior Services, the agency that helps seniors in need so they can continue to live independently at home.

What a great program! I’m embarrassed I never thought of having kids make cause marketing pinups. (Although earlier this year I did write about A. C. Moore’s pinups for Easter Seals that involved an in-store crafting event.)

Sharna is a smart, creative, giving cause marketer. As a bonus, she and her husband are also Red Sox fans.

Much of what Sharna learned on pinups and transactional cause marketing is included in the Six Figure Cause Marketing webinar. I hope you’ll join us for the next session in January.

Cause Marketing in the ‘Hood: Starbucks, Whole Foods

In my travels this past weekend, I came across two cause marketing programs at two stores my family frequents a lot.

The first was at Starbucks where I saw a display for the new Conservation International Starbucks Card. You load the card with dough and every time you spill the beans at Starbucks through the end of the year five cents goes to CI. I like the program, and as a Starbucks customer I admire the coffee behemoth for supporting CI’s mission to protect the earth.

One program I missed in Starbucks stores this month, however, was their annual Leprechaun Latte promotion to support Boston-based Jumpstart. This was a simple cause marketing program that rewarded Jumpstart with 25 cents for every green latte sold. I reported in 2006 that the program raised $13,000.

This program was a great example of a giant company doing local cause marketing (Leprechaun Lattes were unique to New England). As a local cause marketer it gave me hope that maybe my little nonprofit could one day work with Starbucks. Now, it looks as if I may need to look for my pot of gold elsewhere.

My second stop this weekend was at Whole Foods, a grocer I’ve written glowingly on for their passive cause marketing programs. On this trip, however, I was pleasantly accosted by a passionate young cashier named Amanda. She asked me to support the Whole Planet Foundation, a nonprofit started by Whole Foods to help fuel economic development in poor countries, mainly through microfinancing. You could donate a $1 or $5, but if you chose the latter, Whole Foods included a chocolate bar to sweeten the deal!

I really appreciated Amanda’s enthusiasm, and she shared how Whole Foods had raised $2 million to help victims from the Haiti earthquake.

Like in the passive cause marketing program I reviewed earlier this year, the signage for this program was right near the credit card machine where everyone could see it. “Empower women through micro-credit” was the call to action for this sophisticated, educated shopper. But, as in every other program I’ve ever run, the person at the register makes all the difference.

I wish Whole Foods would encourage more of their cashiers to “make the ask.”

I wish every store had more cashiers like Amanda!

Boston Bruins Use Pinups to Score Again for Kids with HIV

The Boston Bruins are teaming up with iParty and Fuddruckers again to raise money for The SPARK Center. This program was a great success last year, raising $45,000. You can read all about it here.

The B’s have been a great partner, as have iParty and Fuddruckers. While this year hasn’t proven to be the dominating season last year was for the Boston Bruins, the team is still first in the hearts of all the kids, parents and staff involved with The SPARK Center.

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