Right now, you may be looking for a way to stand out from your competition. You may have realized that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of people out there who do what you do, and it’s time to differentiate yourself and your business.
You may have come across the term “Cause Marketing” in my blog or elsewhere and you’re considering implementing it in your own business. But, you don’t know where to start. When you look around at the world, you see so many issues and you’d like to attach yourself to something worthwhile.
How?
A few months ago, I was presenting to a group of professional women about the benefits of Cause Marketing. One of the women raised her hand about halfway through the presentation and said, “How do you decide what cause to support and what charity to select?”
A great question. I actually discuss this in my new book Do Good to Do Better: A Small Business Guide to Growing Your Business by Helping Nonprofits. Here’s a quick excerpt before we dive further in.
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Selecting a nonprofit to collaborate with may be the most important decision you ever make (no pressure there).
How does one go about making this uber-important call? Well, there are two steps in this process:
- What cause will you support?
and if you don’t have the intention of starting your own foundation…
- What organization will you support?
Let’s start with the cause. There are a few ways to select the societal issue that you’ll help eradicate:
Heart Alignment
What do you care about? What population tugs at your heart strings? What situation is currently making your blood boil?
Was your father a veteran? Did your grandmother die of breast cancer? When you were a child, do you remember the embarrassment of being called to the office to pick up your “weekend bag of food?”
When I think about animals being mistreated, abused, or killed due to lack of space… I want to start throat-punching people. I’m not going to say that I don’t care about helping the homeless, children, Veterans, or anyone else – however my heart belongs to animals. And that’s okay. You can’t fix every problem. Pick one for now and when you make your billions, you can support everyone.
If you are a solopreneur, there’s only one person you need to convince… you. However, if you work with a team, there will likely be more opinions to take into consideration. There are two sides to this coin. The first is the “happy, when you have a say in something, you are more invested in the outcome” side. The second is the “sad, everyone has a different opinion and you might alienate some of your staff by giving everyone voting rights” side. Whether you involve your employees is up to you.
Industry Alignment
What makes sense because of your industry? If you are a restaurant, it would make sense to align with a hunger charity because you have similar missions (feeding people, if that was not glaringly obvious). If you are a realtor, you may support an organization that provides housing for low income individuals. Or, you may have walked into multiple foreclosed homes where the family pet was left behind, so now you want to help animals.
Customer Alignment
In Cause Marketing for Dummies, Waters and MacDonald suggest that you “Determine whether the cause’s donors fit the demographic of your company’s customers and prospects.”
Makes sense, right? If part of your Why is to increase brand awareness and sales, aligning with a nonprofit who is actually in front of your potential customers, makes good sense.
Follow the Donation Requests
If you’ve been in business for more than 10 minutes, you’ve likely been bombarded with requests for donations. Local nonprofits, church groups, softball teams, they all need help.
However, do you have a product that lends itself to a certain cause?
I recently spoke to Jake Neeley with the Malouf Foundation. Malouf Sleep has been in business for approximately 16 years making sheets, pillows, mattress protectors, and more. They had a wide variety of nonprofits asking for donations, but they began to realize that many of them were domestic violence shelters and foster care facilities that were looking to provide a comfortable night’s sleep to people while they helped them get back on their feet.
The more Malouf donated and worked with the organizations, the more they learned about the problems they were facing. The cause struck a chord.
For purposes of transparency and ease of donating, they decided to start their own foundation to help stop human trafficking and prevent the exploitation of children. (https://malouffoundation.org/)
I know we already talked about the benefits of standing for a cause in an earlier chapter, but it’s worth mentioning that Malouf’s charitable involvement has become so ingrained in their culture that they attract top talent who are more interested in making a difference, than making a dollar. In fact, one of Jake’s coworkers left a lot of money on the table during a counteroffer, because he believed so strongly in what the company stands for. We’ll discuss the different ways in which they’re helping, in a later chapter.
Do you have a few causes in mind? Make a list of the top three or four social issues that you care about. Once you’ve done that, we can discuss whether or not size matters.
Size of the nonprofit, of course!
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Welcome back!
You just read about a few ways to select a cause to champion.
I shared these (in not so many words) with my audience at that presentation and it led to another question: “What if your customers don’t like the cause you choose?”
Another great question.
It is absolutely possible that when you select a cause and nonprofit to support, you’re going to turn some people off. There are, however, ways to lessen that risk.
There are “safe” causes like feeding hungry children and then there are “risky” causes like the hard-line Dicks Sporting Goods drew on Gun Control. Here’s a quick excerpt so you’re in the loop.
The flip side: Do you want to take a stand against your potential customers? Think back to the example I gave earlier about Dick’s Sporting Goods. They took a very brazen stance on gun control and in doing so, alienated potential customers and vendors who thought otherwise. It worked out okay for them, but if you’re going to stand up for something, make sure you’re willing to lose some fans. Causes can be very polarizing.
If you choose to support (or oppose) gay marriage, women’s reproductive rights, or the exploitation of the environment in order to improve the economy, you are going to make some enemies. It doesn’t matter which side you take, there’s always another side.
Why do I consider some causes safer than others? Because they don’t have the “other side.” I’ve never heard anyone scream, “Don’t you dare help feed children. Damn kids should go hungry. And while you’re at it, get off my lawn!”
It’s a pretty universally held belief that kids are helpless and need our protection (and food… kids need food).
I’ve also never had anyone complain, “I wish you’d stop helping all of those adorable homeless pets. I don’t think Animal Control has enough opportunity to practice their euthanizing skills.” (Ugh, I’m writing this on a plane and can’t squeeze my dog). Most people (with souls) understand the role animals play in our existence and want to help them live better lives. Even if they don’t love animals, they don’t want to see them hurt.
I’m so going to squeeze her when I get home.
Last example, I promise. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Those awful Veterans. So what if they were wounded fighting for our country? Doesn’t mean they should get anything special.”
Sure, there may be someone out there (named Scrooge) that’s uttered those words… but they are not the norm.
Some causes just come with less argument surrounding them and less emotional baggage. Should you select those? If you care about them, sure. But, if you want to stand up for something you believe in (even though you may make some customers VERY angry), go for it. What I’m not advocating for is picking something you feel lukewarm about. Your lack of sincerity and concern for the cause will certainly come through in your attitude and you’ll just be spoiling the concept for everyone. Find something you really care about and then throw the weight of your business behind it.
Here’s the thing, there’s no guarantee that Cause Marketing will work for your business. There’s no guarantee that ANYTHING will work for your business. However, if you select a cause that’s close to your heart and that you truly believe in, it won’t actually matter if you got a busload of new customers from it (or lost a handful). You’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you made a difference in this world. And, isn’t that why you went into business in the first place?
I’d love to know what cause matters to you. Share it in the comments.
Do Good to Do Better: A Small Business Guide to Growing your Business by Helping Nonprofits is due out November 2019. To download the first few chapters free, please visit: www.dogoodtodobetter.com
About the Author
Sheryl Green is a New York native living and thawing in Las Vegas since 2008. After years of begging for money to support animal rescue, she discovered Cause Marketing and her life was forever changed. She now brings her knowledge of storytelling to non-fiction and content writing, working with businesses and individuals who want to position themselves as experts in their field and differentiate themselves from the competition. She is also the co-founder and president of the Cause Marketing Chamber of Commerce.
Sheryl is the author of 4 books and serves as the Director of Communications and Cuddling for Hearts Alive Village Las Vegas. Learn more at www.sherylgreenspeaks.com.
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