Newsletter: Landing Your 1st Corporate Partner 🎯; Pretzels for a Cause 🥨; Your Nonprofit's Emails Suck 👎
Selfish Giving is all about two things...
1. How to find and land corporate partnerships.
2. How to execute cause marketing programs that are win-win for you and your business partner.
Simple, right? You know what else should be simple? Identifying your first corporate partner.
New corporate partners aren't so much discovered as they are detected. This means they are already there - right under your feet like buried treasure! If you have individual donors to your nonprofit you have a new corporate partner somewhere in your ranks. Folks, most people don't just inherit their wealth (bless you if you have). They have to work for it by either running a business or working for one. The key for you is to learn as much as you can about your donors so you can identify businesses that would make good partners.
Wherever I've worked in my nearly two decade nonprofit career, I always focused first on people and companies in my "bullseye." I call them my "Supporters":
1. Individuals that supported my nonprofit that also owned and ran businesses.
2. Companies that already supported my nonprofit (i.e. sponsors, vendors).
Now, if you're saying aloud right now: "Joe, I don't have anyone in my bullseye." First, try digging deeper. Everyone has some one. Second, if you dig and find nothing, well, you have a big problem and you have no business doing cause marketing. I would start by reading this.
But if you are reading this and saying: "Joe, I've DONE THIS and mined my existing donors but I need more partnerships" you're the perfect candidate for a FREE WEBINAR that Catalist's Brittany Hill and I are hosting Tomorrow, May 3rd. You'll learn:
1. Recommendations on the most significant data points and factors to consider when rating the strength of a potential corporate prospect.
2. Suggested tactics for opening new doors to corporations (after your warm leads and board relationships have dried up!).
3. Tips for effective corporate prospect research.
4. Industry-leading case studies and exclusive insights from CSR executives on right-fit partnerships.
Sound like a good next step? Signup here --->>>
New stuff from me 😊
This week on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Adrienne Weil, Vice President of Partnerships at Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) about how they approach corporate partnerships, cause marketing and measuring the impact of both.
🎙I recently joined Steve MacLaughlin on the Blackbaud podcast to talk about why cause marketing beats corporate giving and sponsorship hands down, among other things.
🎪Over at Eventbrite, I share my tips for retaining event sponsors.
Partnership notes 📝
🌲How's this for a long-term partnership? Enterprise Rent-A-Car is 12 years in to a 50 year partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 50 million trees by 2056.
🚴♀️Ohio companies will pay you to ride, run and walk. Pelotonia, the local grassroots movement that pushes to end cancer, is launching a new app called PULLL. For every mile completed, users can unlock donation dollars, funded by the day's sponsor.
🥨In honor of its 30th birthday, Auntie Anne’s, the world’s largest hand-rolled soft pretzel franchise, has partnered with six artists to create a bold, graphic design-inspired line of clothing and accessories. All profits from the For the Love of Pretzels Collection will be donated to Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. Since the inception of the partnership in 2011, Auntie Anne’s has raised more than $3.7 million to fund childhood cancer research.
12 retailers that could use some positive press right now. Can your nonprofit help?
🌾Is Sprouts Farmers Market better than Whole Foods for cause marketing? This southwestern grocer has 285 stores and plans to add 20 more stores this year. Who's working with this chain? What are they doing for your organization?
⏳Morton Salt is getting salty about food waste.
Marketing your cause 🤑
🤓NextAfter's's Brady Josephson signed up for email updates from 152 nonprofits. It did not go well. Watch for my email newsletter training later this year.
A good way to think of your nonprofit's marketing; you need a fan-centric organization. More from the article's author, the brilliant Robert Rose!
☢️Consider yourself warned. What happens to nonprofit's that lose the public's trust.
Cool jobs in cause** 😎
Director, Corporate Partnerships & Cause Marketing, National Parks Conservation Association (Washington, DC)
Manager, Partnerships, Partnership for a Healthier America (Washington, DC)
Associate, Corporate Partnerships, Share our Strength (Washington, DC)
**Have your cause-related job featured here? Hit reply or email me at joe@selfishgiving.com.
Brain food 🧠🍌
📕This vending machine spits out short stories. Pick a 1-, 3- or 5-minute story.
🚛What we can accomplish when we work together. →
🍒24 grocery stores I want to shop in. My fave: this one that sells tubs filled with JUST the marshmallows from Lucky Charms. Mmmmm...
Need some help? Have a question, story suggestion or category you wan to see covered? Just leave a comment. 🙏
