Send a copy of your receipt to book@selfishgiving.com and you’ll receive bonus materials. See what’s included at the bottom of this page!
Your ultimate guide to doing well and good is here!
Cause marketing is on the tongue of nearly every cause and company you talk to — and rightfully so. An industry that saw just $120 million in spending in 1990 will top $1.7 billion in 2011, according to the latest IEG Sponsorship Report.
But the growth in cause marketing has been uneven, as many small companies and causes have watched from the sidelines.
Cause Marketing for Dummies turns spectators into players by introducing businesses and nonprofits of all sizes to strategies that are proven, easy and lucrative.
- Traditional cause marketing, such as point-of-sale and purchase-triggered donation programs, which companies and causes of any size can execute.
- How combining social media with cause marketing can level the playing field with larger competitors, raise more money and build awareness.
- The future of cause marketing as it unfolds with mobile technology and location-based services, such as Foursquare, Facebook Places, and SCVNGR. These developments promise further advantages for smaller companies and causes – if they embrace them!
More than anything else, this book is about what works. Joe and Joanna speak from experience. They’ve personally tried and tested everything in the book. The tactics, tips, suggestions, and insights they offer can be repeated again and again with the same positive results.
Joe Waters, second from left, accepts a check from (left to right) the CEO’s of Fuddruckers of New England and iParty and the head of the Boston Bruins Foundation. The money was raised during a month-long cause marketing promotion.
Praise for Cause Marketing for Dummies!
Joe Waters has given us an easy to understand manual on how to do Cause Marketing chocked full of tactical information and tips.
I founded the Cause Marketing Forum 10 years ago and frequently receive calls and emails from people who work for small nonprofits or businesses asking for advice on getting started in cause marketing. For a decade I lamented that I didn’t have a really good guidebook to suggest that they read. Well those days are over! Bravo to the authors of Cause Marketing for Dummies. It’s a great resource full of good advice on developing opportunities for companies and causes to do well by doing good together. The icing on the cake is that it captures the wonderful wit and generous spirit that the followers of Joe Waters have enjoyed for years through his Selfish Giving blog.
David Hessekiel, President, Cause Marketing Forum
Cause Marketing for Dummies is eminently readable and chock-full of good counsel. My copy has a number of highlighted sections.
Paul Jones, CauseRelatedMarketing.biz
Joe Waters and Joanna MacDonald, having cut their cause marketing teeth through years of grass roots experience, have produced a manual of cause marketing for the rest of us. They know that each organization has to start somewhere and that there are lots of low risk entry points for the organization willing to learn and work hard.
Joanne Fritz, Nonprofit Guide, About.com
As a development director and long time major gifts guy, cause marketing has always seemed to dilute philanthropic giving. Moreover, it always seemed reserved for the “big boys” in cancer…. I really didn’t see how such an initiative could fit into my already over crowded schedule. Cause Marketing for Dummies addresses both and has changed my perspective.
Marc Pitman, The Fundraising Coach; Author, Ask Without Fear
The book is chock-a-block full of great examples of successful programs, practical advice and shows how to elevate cause marketing to build on its first twenty-five years plus of making a difference. I love the knowledge, passion and experience Joe and Joanna bring to the book. But more importantly, I love their accessible writing style and heartfelt commitment to extend cause marketing as a win-win tool for more nonprofits and businesses. We all win with that! Cause Marketing for Dummies is a must-read and a critical addition to any business or nonprofit marketer, social media expert or fundraisers library. It’s one I’ll be recommending over and over again.
Waters’ book gives both small businesses and nonprofits a heads-up about the pitfalls of cause-marketing and clear steps for avoiding them. He includes a generous list of resources, both online and off, so you can take the first step toward cause marketing: educating yourself.
I don’t usually think of myself as a “dummy,” but I have to admit that Joe Waters and Joanna MacDonald’s new book - Cause Marketing for Dummies - sure set me straight about what cause marketing is and isn’t. If you thought you knew what it was and how to do it, you might want to think again…and read this great new book.
I’ll be honest, before I picked up this book my interest in Cause marketing was pretty much zero. But this book got me excited, thinking about possibilities for some organizations I’m currently doing work for.
Mazarine Treyz, Wild Woman Fundraising
Authors Joe and Joanna know their stuff from a decade of hard work in the trenches and convey it in a meaningful, effective and entertaining way. I took their cause marketing class as well and was so impressed with what I learned, even with a few years of experience already under my belt. They are just that good – their knowledge is deep and their creativity is proven. I highly recommend the book and the class they offer. It is time and money very well spent!
The authors are really sexy! … The book is good too.
John Haydon, Author, Facebook Marketing for Dummies (December, 2011)
Meet the Authors
For nearly 20 years, Joe Waters and Joanna MacDonald have worked with causes and companies of all sizes to build successful and lucrative cause marketing partnerships.
Joe and Joanna spearheaded a cause marketing program with Ocean State Job Lot that raised $1 million! Learn how in Cause Marketing for Dummies.
Joe Waters is the blogger at Selfishgiving.com, the web’s #1 cause marketing blog that chronicles his insights on executing successful programs on a shoestring budget. His focus is the nuts and bolts of cause marketing campaigns, and what works for causes. He speaks to causes that don’t have an international rock star as a spokesperson or can’t boast they’ve raised money from selling a pink toaster. (Is that YOU?)
Joe is a sought after speaker on cause marketing, and speaks annually at the Cause Marketing Forum Conference.
Joanna MacDonald is director of cause marketing at one of Boston’s largest hospitals. Her specialty is integrating cause marketing with events and media and developing co-marketing opportunities for partners. Her prior professional experience straddles both the business and nonprofit worlds with stints at the United Way, Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce–where Joe and she first met!–and Cablevision.
Joe and Joanna have worked together for over ten years.
Joanna is on hand to accept a check at Fenway Park from New England dairy giant H.P. Hood and its Home Team Advantage Program. For every Red Sox home run, Hood made a donation to area children’s hospitals. Action-triggered cause marketing is just one type of program covered in Cause Marketing for Dummies.
Joe and Joanna have done it the old-fashioned way: through trial and error, marketing savvy and perseverance. They can lead you to cause marketing success because they were just like you: new to cause marketing, unsure of what direction to take, intimidated by the glitzy programs they saw the big nonprofits roll-out. They nonetheless discovered the path to success and share the road to success – minus the bumps and wrong turns in Cause Marketing for Dummies.
Joe and Joanna have worked with many local and national companies on cause marketing programs. How did we do it? It’s all inside Cause Marketing for Dummies!
Cause Marketing for Dummies is Practical, Actionable, Step by Step and Written for You
- You’ll learn how to build a cause marketing program from start to finish with all the insights, examples and details you need to be successful.
- You’ll know which causes and companies are the best prospects for cause marketing, and how to woo them.
- You’ll learn the easiest, most lucrative ways to raise money.
- You’ll see firsthand how a nonprofit can help grow your business and how the best way to support a cause is not with the company check book.
- You’ll learn how to leverage cause marketing to compete against larger causes and companies and boost your bottom-line.
Finagle a Bagel, a chain with nine locations in Greater Boston, raised $25,000 with a simple point-of-sale cause marketing program.
10 Things You’re Gonna Love in Cause Marketing for Dummies
- Getting internal buy-in to green light a cause marketing program.
- Finding cause marketing partners is easier than you think.
- Discovering the hands down, no doubt, number one cause marketing practice that works.
- Sharing the win-win-win benefits of cause marketing to company, customer and cause.
- Motivating volunteers, supporters, employees, shoppers and staff to execute a program.
- Tapping blogging, Twitter and Facebook to build your credibility, share your successes and recruit new partners.
- Avoiding 10 common cause marketing mistakes that can derail your program before you ever get started.
- Getting started with cutting edge practices, such as mobile cause marketing with QR codes, location-based services and text giving.
- Keeping partners happy and taking your partnership to the next level.
- Buying this book gives you access to additional resources for mastering cause marketing.
iParty stores with 50 locations annually raised $160,000 with cause marketing.
