Newsletter: What’s Your Pumpkin Spice Partnership Strategy? 🎃 ; Farm-Animal Nonprofits Partner for 'Hunger Games' for Goats 🐐; How & When to Use Slides in Your Partnership Pitch 📽
🚨🚨Important Notice: I'm off to Italy🍝 on Sunday and WILL PROBABLY NOT be publishing a newsletter for the next two Wednesdays (September 21st & 28th).
Sad, right? But my wife says I have to finally leave the house! 😱 I strongly disagree, but she tells me she knows best!
I say PROBABLY NOT because I ❤️ publishing my newsletter. After all, consistency is really my ONLY true talent and virtue!
Still, I'm not sure how much time I'll have when I'm away. My wife has packed the schedule with sights and has a A LOT of bags for me to carry.
If I can squeeze in a newsletter, I'll be sure to do so. If you need anything partnership-related (Or maybe a bottle of premium olive oil? Leather jacket? Framed picture of me with the Pope?), just give me a holler. I'll be checking email. At least she can't take that away from me!
The good news is that I'll be back in your inbox on Wednesday, October 5th.
Arrivederci e ci vediamo presto!
🇮🇹 🇮🇹 🇮🇹
🎃 Have you noticed that pumpkin spice is like...EVERYWHERE. Candles, coffees, teas, chips, vodka, donuts, Twinkies, and PEEPS (my favorite!).
So, if everything has pumpkin spice in it this fall, shouldn't your partnership strategy also have pumpkin spice mixed into it???
Now, before you stop reading and conclude that the pumpkin has finally slid off Joe's pumpkin-flavored cracker, hear me out...
This fall tap into the sweet pumpkin spice nostalgia of your brand.
Pumpkin spice is all about the smells of fall that transport people back to a sweeter, kinder time (that really didn't exist, but whatever).
Think of the the relative normalcy of life before the pandemic. Baking pies for Thanksgiving with grandma. Trick-or-treating with childhood friends.
This fall make a point to communicate with your partnership prospects about the positive, memorable, and possibly cloyingly sappy things from your nonprofit's past.
If you work at the Muscular Dystrophy Association, talk about the Labor Day Telethon and what a huge, wonderful event it was. Share a video of Jerry Lewis yucking it up with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.
If you're in development at the Old State House in Boston, share photos of when a younger Queen Elizabeth II visited the landmark and appeared on the balcony to adoring crowds below.
If you're a fundraiser with UNICEF, talk about the history of Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF and that time Lassie carried an orange collection box on her show.
Of course, "nostalgia" is relative to the person. Pick an appropriate example from their generation (Baby Boomer, Gen X, etc.). You can tell from my examples that I'm a Gen Xer who thinks he's from the "Silent" generation.
The key is to whip up a bygone emotional connection with the prospect. It's not enough to make them THINK a partnership with your organization is the right thing; you want them to FEEL IT.😭
No, the prospect won't smell pumpkin spice when you share that right thing with them. But they sure as hell will feel it. And that warm, sentimental feeling just might be the stirred in goodness you need to seal a deal. Good luck!
✍️ Partnership Notes
1. Dick's Sporting Goods is reinforcing its purpose by moving deeper into resales.
2. Do you partner with dollar store chains to raise money? Why you may want to ask for more than a dollar at the register.
3. Swipe right: Toilet paper brand partners with bowel cancer nonprofit to highlight symptoms.
4. Farm-animal sanctuaries partner to launch 'Hunger Games' for goats, raise $173k. 🐐
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
1. This video is well worth five minutes of your time. How and when to use slides in your partnership pitch. Tamsen Webster is a real speaking pro!
2. Seven psychological writing tactics to get inside the minds of your audience. #1: Use two numbers in your headings.
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause
1. Development & Corporate Relationships Manager, AgeOptions, Greater Chicago Area/Hybrid
2. Senior Director of Corporate & Business Partnerships, Boys and Girls Clubs, Portland, OR ($65,000)
3. Corporate Partnership Director, Junior Achievement of OKI Partners, Cincinnati, OH
4. Marketing Coordinator, Rocket Social Impact, Remote
🧠🍌 Brain Food
1. Brands mocked for ill-judged tributes to the late Queen. This altered photo was the worst.
2. Four ways to make your donor relations recession proof. #1: Survey your audience. This is also the #1 takeaway from my own keynote presentation: Future Proof Your Nonprofit with Audience-Centric Fundraising.
3. Sure, Facebook is full of snake-oil salesmen. But at least they are trying to save a few actual snakes too.
