Newsletter: Recession-Proof Your Fundraising Team 💰; You Sip, Starbucks Donates ☕️ ; How to Create Emotional Content 😲
If the stock market is any indicator, this bull market won't last forever. Now is the time to prepare for the next downturn. If I managed a corporate partnership team, here's what I would be doing.
1. Focusing on larger accounts. Review all of your prospective partnerships and figure out which ones are sucking up all your energy for too little potential gain. Put your time, energy and resources into prospects that offer a big return. When the downturn comes, you'll be focused on the best and most lucrative prospects.
2. Creating a "self-service" area for smaller accounts. Create a page on your web site that outlines a few simple fundraisers any small business can execute (e.g. donation box, donate profits day, matching gifts). When small businesses write or call offering to help, direct them to this page. Make sure to include case studies of successful partnerships!
3. Scheduling weekly pipelines reviews. This will help keep the process moving and allow you to identify and course correctlower performers on your team.
4. Digging into the analytics. Now is the time deeply explore and understand what your supporters can offer a corporate partner and how you can activate them on their behalf. (How can you do this? I recommend Catalist).
Winter is coming! Will you be ready?
✍️ Partnership Notes
1. It's baaack! Saturday is World Aids Day and Starbucks will once again be raising money for (RED) - adding to the $14 million they've already raised for them.
2. Sheetz is flexing its creative side, using specially painted trucks to drive donations to its fund for needy kids. The c-store chain is selling swag, including buttons, bandanas, bags and tees, with proceeds benefiting the Sheetz for Kidz Foundation.
3. How Paypal powered #GivingTuesday.
4. A good article from HBR to share with your corporate partners: how to make kindness a core tenet of your company. (Did you hit a paywall trying to access this article - or any article in this newsletter? Hit reply and I'll send it to you.)
5. Three UK brands - FatFace, Pukka Herbs and Pret a Manager - that pushed back on Black Friday madness with social good campaigns.
6. St. Jude's Thanks and Giving is in full swing. One partner, Ann Taylor and LOFT, has raised over $44 million for the charity since 2007. Check out St. Jude's other partners here. 🤤
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
1. How to create emotional content that engages your audience. Next, read this article on how to tell stories about complex issues. I like their 2 + 2 strategy to create a "curiosity gap."
2. Behind the National Trust’s historic digital roadmap and what's next: smart speakers, visual recognition and AI.
3. Three key places a marketing manager and executive director should align.
4. So, when it comes to pitching journalists, what really works? The lessons of a 150 successful PR pitches.
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause Marketing**
1. Regional Philanthropy Officer, Corporate Giving, American Red Cross (Medford, MA)
2. Senior Partnerships Officer, Action Against Hunger (NYC)
3. Boston Waterfront Partnerships Manager, The Trustees of Reservations (Boston, MA)
4. Director, Strategic Alliances, First Book (Washington, DC)
**Have your cause-related job featured here for FREE. Hit reply to this email and give me the details and a link.
🧠🍌 Brain Food
1. The charity walkathon is dead. Thank goodness.
2. It's time for the annual Starbucks holiday cup controversy. Does this year's design embrace Christmas? 🧐
3. If you think 2018 is a bad year, you can be thankful you didn't live through this year.
Have a question, comment or just want to say hi? Just leave a comment below. 🙏
