Jocks For a Cause

This past weekend I saw a segment on an NFL pre-game show about Mark Sanchez, New York Jets quarterback, who is heavily involved in a number of nonprofits that help children. They focused on his work with Tuesday’s Children, an organization that helps children who lost a parent in the 9-11 attacks.

I think it’s great that Sanchez has taken some of his hefty salary and uses that along with his notoriety to support a nonprofit. I also thought it was generous when New York Giants Head Coach Tom Coughlin founded The Jay Fund in 1996 (when he was coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars). The fund is named for Jay McGillis, his former player of his at Boston College who died of leukemia. Even though Tom no longer lives in Jacksonville, he is still active in the cause and fundraising efforts.

I do have some concerns about athletes that establish foundations and then expect the public to be the greater funder. Athletes have benefitted from their success both financially and with brand awareness. They have an obligation when they start a foundation to remain the face of the effort, be active in any fundraising, and put their money into the cause.

Too Much Pink?

I am a 22-year breast cancer survivor. I have had a supportive husband and family for my cancer journey but sometimes all of us feel that there’s too much “pink” in the month of October.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation should be commended for raising the awareness about breast cancer and leading the charge on getting cause-related marketing efforts to contribute to the cause. There are so many other worthy nonprofits such as the American Cancer Society that also raise funds for breast cancer. But does out focus on this disease crowd out other cancers and other causes that are just as worthy?

Not sure I know the answer to that. I do know that women have a primal fear of breast cancer and what the disease means to them both as far as appearance and longevity. I also know that marketers want to reach women because they are the primary decision-maker in so many purchases.

So while I revel in the awareness the cause has created, I hope that other programs get the much-needed attention that they deserve too.

09.11.01, A Personal Reflection

The remembrance of September 11th that is being hyped by a number of groups does bring to mind how the event affected my life. My family had been in New York City that August and my husband and son had gone down to the twin towers one day. I had grown up in Jersey and remembered when the towers were built. People said then that they were ugly architecture being added to the city.

Returning to Florida, where we have lived since 1980, I had just taken a new marketing/public relations position at Scott-McRae Advertising, the parent of Cause to Communicate, the week before the tragedy. Our offices were then on the same floor with senior management executives of the Scott-McRae Group holding company which managed many businesses in the southeastern United States.

The morning of 9-11 as I walked to my desk I passed our state-of-the-art conference room where several execs had assembled. They were watching television. They explained that a plane had hit the one of the towers. Then the second plane hit. We all knew it was no accident.

The President/CEO of the holding company turned to me and asked “what do we do from a public relations standpoint”. I knew we had ads running in the newspapers on the weekend that we couldn’t get out of but we could change our creative.

Scott-McRae Group was the first company in Northeast Florida to run an ad asking for support for area nonprofits that were assisting in the aftermath. We gained an incredible amount of goodwill for starting the trend. And, in a way, it started me down the path to Cause to Communicate. Because after that day, it was very easy to see that life is very short and we should all be trying to contribute something that improves it for all.

Why the slow death of print journalism is bad for nonprofits

If you are involved with a nonprofit you might think ‘why do I care if local newspapers are slowly becoming extinct?’ I live in a major Florida city that has seen dramatic cuts to the daily newspaper staff this year. It has reached the point where it is seriously impacting the newspaper’s ability to cover local news and forget about investigative journalism.

So why should nonprofits care? Because coverage in the local newspaper is a great way to reach the typical nonprofit donor. Newspaper readers are older and they tend to have more time to volunteer and more money to donate. Also, not all older citizens participate in social networks so it may be difficult to reach them with those type of media marketing tools. Finally, local television news tends to follow that old adage ‘if it bleeds, it leads.” So, unless your nonprofit is in major trouble you can expect minimal television coverage.

In addition to the news coverage of your nonprofit, your organization should be concerned that there will be less and less coverage of the issues that have created the need for your organization. Therefore nonprofits will have to do more education with potential donors on why their organization is important to the quality of life in the community.

I guess I’m showing my age. I’m an old-time newspaper junkie. In college at Rutgers I used to read three newspapers on Sunday – (The New Brunswick Home News, The Newark Star-Ledger, and The New York Times). I still have to have a paper The New York Times on Sunday to complete my day. It’s sad that an industry that contributes to the general well-being of the community by serving as a non-biased review of the day’s issues is dying.

If nonprofits could run on coffee

Nonprofits have faced some strong challenges over the past several years. Donations have been down while requests for assistance have been up and recent articles point to a trend that shows many nonprofit executive directors will be retiring in the next few years.

What’s a nonprofit to do? The critical element to any situation is communication. So Cause to Communicate is having some fun by offering a giveaway of coffee (and delicious things to dunk in coffee!) through our Facebook page.

Bold Bean Coffee has roasted an organic Cause to Communicate blend to please your palate and get the conversation going.

Seriously, if nonprofits could run on coffee wouldn’t the world be a better place! So go to our Facebook page and “Like” us for a chance to make your nonprofit run on coffee.

 

The myth that nonprofits are not a business

Cause to Communicate is located in Florida so we thought it might be interesting to examine the nonprofit sector in our state. With the help of The Florida Philanthropic Network’s 2008 study on the Florida Nonprofit Sector, we’re going to make the case that this is a vital business industry to the economic well-being of our state.

The nonprofit industry is the state’s fourth largest employer. In 2005 there were 17,814 nonprofits including 4,128 private foundations. In 2005, the nonprofits of Florida employed nearly 630,000 workers which represents one out of every 20 workers in the state. Also as of 2005, the industry generated $48.1 billion in revenues, spent $44.5 billion including over $14.6 billion in wages and compensation and generated at least $300 million of sales tax revenues for Florida governments.

Florida does lag behind the rest of the U.S. in average charitable contribution per $1000 of income as well as volunteering rate. It is not clear if this is a function of the fact that the state has a disproportionately high number of senior citizens or that its median wage is 8% below the U.S. average even though the cost of living is higher than the U.S. average.

Whatever you believe, the nonprofit industry is one of the fastest growing employment sectors in the state and contributes to the quality of life through both good works and financial value.

Effective social listening

Saw this headline on an email from the Copernicus Mzine and thought it to be especially relevant in today’s nonprofit world. You have to listen to whomever you are speaking with to ascertain where their mindset is. Are they true believers in what your organization does or are they skeptical of good deeds? Do they want to know how effective you are or would they prefer to hear stories about how you help?

After you hear from them you must ensure that you have an effective speaker that is able to clearly communicate your brand based on what your target needs to know. Sometimes that’s difficult for nonprofits. They are so passionate they want to tell the whole story. It’s not really about that – it’s about the part of the story that will resonate with the listener.

So know who you are talking with and what they are willing to hear. Some messages won’t resonate.

The Power of Half

I’ve been reading “The Power of Half” by Kevin and Hannah Salwen. If you don’t know this true story, the Salwen family, at the impetus of their middle school age daughter Hannah, sold their big house in Atlanta, downsized to a house half the size, and used the proceeds from the sale to fund a nonprofit project in Ghana.

As I was driving through a beautiful neighborhood in a very high end community this weekend, I was struck by the size of the houses. Yes, I used to live in that community and like the Salwen’s did get caught up in having the newest, latest, biggest phenomenon. I thought about do people really need 10,000 sq. ft. homes with four car garages? What if all those people did what the Salwen’s did? Wouldn’t that be great?

But then I felt guilty because it’s not just about the very wealthy. Anyone could just as easily do “The Power of Half.” It’s not about the size of your home or the size of your donation. It’s about being passionate about helping and figuring out how to offer that assistance whether it’s time, treasure or talent.

If you haven’t read the book, pick up a copy. Better yet, Kevin Salwen is coming to Jacksonville in October to speak at the 100th Anniversary of Community Connections. Hear how you can have the Power of Half.

But does it really help?

Recently I heard about a local business that wanted to help tsunami victims by donating shoes to an organization called Soles4Souls. Sounded like a great idea – helping people out by donating goods. Then soon after I read a story in USA Today about nonprofits such as Salvation Army and Soles4Souls that actually sell these goods to for-profit middlemen who then sell them to vendors in other countries. It creates money for the nonprofits and jobs through microenterprise they say. But does it really help?

I don’t mean to pick on the local business that wanted to help or any individual who comes up with an idea to donate goods for those in need but it does beg the question. Does the nonprofit actually need what you are going to give? Whose responsibility is it to explain what the need is and should nonprofits accept in-kind donations that don’t fit with the mission?

Every nonprofit should have an acceptance policy about gifts – whether they be time, treasure or talent. But every donor should know upfront where their gift is going.

I do find that nonprofits in today’s economy are so desperate for donations that they won’t turn anything down. I believe that they need to do a better job explaining the need and why they may need cash vs. in-kind. A recent campaign by a local homeless shelter explaining that the $5 you spend on a coffee can provide five meals is just the kind of communication nonprofits must do in order to generate much-needed funds.

 

TINSTAAF

(There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)

I talk to many nonprofits about marketing and public relations. The fund development staff all would like to have a concerted professional marketing effort but knows that it is a hard sell because of both budget limitations and myths about spending marketing dollars. Because of that they often spend in inordinate amount of time soliciting free marketing, advertising and public relations.

Many ad agencies mean well when they put together competitions to award a nonprofit with a new logo, brochure or website. But in the end the agency really performs that service for publicity they receive and to be able to do creative work that might win them more publicity in the form of some type of industry awards. It’s not really about what the nonprofit might truly need as far as marketing service and it’s what I call a ‘one-off.’ By that I mean that it’s an activity that’s not part of a concerted strategic marketing effort.

So what’s a nonprofit to do? Consider the time involved to win one of these freebies and if it fits with a plan. At the same time work to educate staff and board of directors that a good solid marketing plan is vital to your organization’s fundraising success.  After all, the adage is ‘you spend money to make money.’