Newsletter: 3 Partnership Myths Roasted 🔥; Girl Scouts Partner with Bomb Maker 💣; Farm Storage Company Puts Your Marketing to Shame 🤭
Just about every day someone asks for my opinion on something related to corporate partnerships. Frankly, I expend most of my breath debunking myths about partnership practices! My best responses include lots of facts and figures to support my position. But, honestly, good research is hard to come by.
That’s one reason I’m so excited about a new report from For Momentum, an Atlanta-based agency that specializes in building strategic cause alliances. Their new report High Expectations: Corporate Partnership Decision-Makers Research Results is full of myth-busting stats on what companies are REALLY looking for in a nonprofit partnership.
Myth #1: There is only person you should target
Myth #2: Companies limit themselves to just one partner
Myth #3: Companies choose partners at set times
Partnership notes
🔬The Girl Scouts launches 30 new science, tech and environment badges. And, yup, the badges are sponsored by companies. For example, Raytheon - a defense contractor - is funding the “Think Like a Programmer" badge.
🤨When a company asks you about the importance of reputation - and how taking a stand on a cause can enhance it - tell them the story of Walmart and Tim Horton. [Scroll down to the News You can Use section]
🧗♀️The North Face, which turned mountain-climbing into a conversation about inclusion with Walls Are Meant For Climbing campaign, is broadening the effort this year, focusing on more public climbing walls. The program culminates on World Climbing Day, August 18th. TNF plans to donate $1 for every person who climbs that day, with a cap of $100,000. Although TNF is continuing its partnership with The Trust for Public Land (we interviewed them on CauseTalk Radio in September), these funds will go to the Khumbu Climbing Center.
📈Who's working with Ross Stores? They've somehow averted the retail apocalypse. They have nearly 1,700 stores in 38 states and just added 30 more.
🌻Since 2009, this garden nursery has donated $1 for every plant sold to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. They just surpassed one million dollars raised!
Marketing your cause 🤑
◀️An interesting Marketing Week article on Patagonia and why brands can’t reverse into purpose through marketing. It requires a whole different mindset that leads with authenticity and transparency and rejects traditional marketing.
🚜Some nonprofits push back when I demand they uncover their strongest emotional message. "Joe, we're not a cancer charity!", they complain. What about a company that makes farm storage buildings? They could say the same thing, right? But Morton Buildings is out with a new ad that shows that their buildings will always be more than what you keep inside. What's your excuse now? Still struggling with the whole emotional thing? How about starting with an interesting story.
Cool jobs in cause** 😎
1. Director of Corporate Partnerships, American College of Sports Medicine (Indianapolis, IN)
2. Manager, Corporate Relations, National Multiple Sclerosis Society (Based in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas or Oklahoma)
3. Senior Digital Account Executive, Fenton (Washington D.C.)
**Have your cause-related job featured here for FREE. Hit reply or email me at joe@selfishgiving.com.
Brain food 🧠🍎
🕹Gamers are becoming a powerful source of donations. A new fundraising push on the game Overwatch netted nearly $13 million for breast cancer.
🏚Meet the 11% of Americans who don’t use the internet. They're old and poor.
🎶🐔Pachelbel's Canon played on a rubber chicken.
Have a question, story suggestion or category you want to see covered? Just leave a comment below. 🙏
