Newsletter: C-Store Chain & Pepsi Partner for ‘Gallons for Growth’⛽️ ; In Case of Apocalypse, Find Your Local 4-H Club 🧑🌾 ; Choosing the Right Audience to Celebrate Your Anniversary 🎁
I like this cartoon UK fundraiser Mark Philips shared on Twitter X yesterday.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
👉🏻👉🏻 For our purposes, let's replace fundraising with corporate partnerships.
🦄 The word BRAND means different things to different people.
"A brand is what people experience when they come into contact with you."
"A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept.”
“A brand is a set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another.”
"A brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room."
I tell nonprofits that your brand is what your audience says about you online. I conflate brand with audience (i.e., Your brand is your audience).
However, this isn't entirely true. Your brand is not the same as your audience. But I would argue that your audience's perception of you significantly impacts your brand's success.
Regardless of your definition of a brand, we can agree that a strong one is a magnet for corporate partnerships.
I like to say, BRANDS COMMAND.
✂️ You can't cut the rope between brand and corporate partnerships. If you pick up one, you pick up the other. Your nonprofit may not focus on branding, but you still have a brand that influences your success (or lack of) with corporate partners.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association, with whom I started my fundraising career in 1993, is today not the brand it was 30 years ago. And it certainly isn't the brand it was 50 years ago.
😒 Ignore your brand at your own risk. It can have several negative consequences that can impact your nonprofit and partnership program in the short and long term.
Inconsistent messaging
Lack of differentiation
Missed targeting opportunities
Loss of trust and credibility
Growth difficulties
Negative perception
Missed emotional connection
Longer recovery time from a crisis
Cut the rope between brand and corporate partnerships? That only happens in cartoons.
In real life, you choose whether the rope will bind you or propel you from one success to another.
✍️ Partnership Notes
1. Scooter Coffee, with 700 stores in 29 states, did a great job celebrating National Dog Day last Saturday. But do you know what was missing? A nonprofit partner! If I were Scooter Coffee, I'd be looking for a partner that could turn a good activation into a great activation. Are you the right partner?
2. Movember UK has partnered with Pringles UK. I love the bold branding on the Pringles can and the clevahh, effective use of the QR code.
3. Last week, I told you how Shell is bringing back The Giving Pump. Realizing that most gas stations can't install a special pump for giving, here's another option.
Kum & Go teamed up with Pepsi for Gallons for Growth to raise money at the pump and in-store for five local nonprofits. Any gas station could do this program!
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
1. Why you should never end a presentation with Q&A. And if you watch one presentation, watch this one. The speaker beat out 30,000 competitors to win the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking.
Geez, back in the day, I only made it to the state finals and lost to a speech on swimming with dolphins.
2. How to choose the right audience to celebrate your nonprofit's anniversary. Let's face it: Most people don't care, so you need to find the audience that does.
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause
1. Manager of Corporate Partnerships, Envision Unlimited, Chicago
2. Director, Cause Marketing & Partnership Development, Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, Scottsdale, AZ
3. Associate, Corporate Partnerships, Share Our Strength, Washington, DC
4. Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships, Musicians on Call, Nashville ($85k)
🧠🍌 Brain Food
1. In case of apocalypse, find the nearest 4-H. 🎁 (🎁 = I'm a subscriber and can "gift" you this article)
"I don’t relish imagining the end of modern civilization. But should it come, former 4-H’ers are the kind of community I want around me."
2. Every fall, I launch my "season of horrible reading" and read lots of horror! I thought this list of Best Haunted House Books 👻 had a couple of good ones. I picked up The House Next Door. Which book will you read?
3. City kids love an open fire hydrant and splashing in the water - but the amount of water waste is incredible. This oversized clown nose 🔴 makes an open hydrant a win for kids, conservationists, and firefighters.🎁
