Joe Waters Joe Waters

Newsletter: 3 Legs of Cause Marketing Success; City Year Talks Corporate Partnerships; Meet Jane Walker

I talk so much about content marketing that people often ask if it's the only thing they need to do to be successful at cause marketing.

My answer is a firm NO. And I suggest they revisit point #3 in this article on the three legs of cause marketingresearch, content marketing and sales. While content marketing will fill the top of the funnel with potential prospects and guide some prospects through the consideration stage, you still need sales people....

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Newsletter: Best Channels for Recruiting Corporate Partners; Golden Halo Winners 😇; 'Plogging' Arrives in America 🏃‍♀️🗑

Want more corporate partners?

For early-stage engagement that gets your organization on a company's radar screen, focus on:

1. Email. The first connection with a prospect is often through email. But plan for a weekly connection via a must-read newsletter.

2. Website. Companies find you online first. That's where they'll sign up for your newsletter. If you don't have a email newsletter signup pop-up on your website, you are missing a major opportunity to collect email addresses.

3. Search & Social. This is how they find your website in the first place. That's why you need a a regular stream of outstanding content on your website that you share on your social channels.

For late-stage engagement that converts them to partners, focus on...

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Ep253: A Painting Company That Gives Back by 'Painting It Forward'

Today on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Josh Abramson, Founder & Chief Solutionist at ALLBRiGHT 1-800-PAINTING, about Paint It Forward, a charity paint program that gives back to the local community.

Since completing the first Paint It Forward event in 2005, the effort has produced over $1 million worth of free painting services and materials delivered to deserving families and nonprofit organizations across the United States and Canada. 

On the show, Megan, Josh and I discuss...

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Newsletter: Raise More Money at Checkout; Valentine's Day Cause Marketing 💝; Best Place to Sell Girl Scout Cookies

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently ran an article on raising more money at the cash register. You can find it here, but you probably won't be able to read it unless you are a subscriber. Let me summarize the major points and give you a few additional resources.

1. Checkout charity fundraisers raise big money. According to Engage for Good's America's Checkout Champions Report, 73 programs in 2016 raised a whopping $441 million. Want to learn more? Check out this post: 7 Key Takeaways for Cause Marketers from America's Checkout Champions Report....

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Ep252: The GOOD, Upworthy Merger One Year Later. From Good to Great?

Today on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Jennifer Lindenauer, Chief Marketing Officer at Good Media Group about the 2017 merger between viral news and video site Upworthy with media and consulting company GOOD Worldwide. We get an update on the merger and their plans for 2018.

On the show, Megan, Jennifer and I discuss...

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Joe Waters Joe Waters

Newsletter: Fact-Checking Water.org's Latest Ad 🏈; Super Bowl Cause Marketing; Meet America's Best Tipper

I'm a member of Carol Cone's Purpose Collaborative, and during last month's community call I challenged my fellow members to pick the number of cause-related ads that would air during the Super Bowl. This was a serious wager! I offered to buy the winner a Starbuck's gift card.

The winner? Carol Cone herself. Yes, it's true, MOM IS ALWAYS RIGHT. In submitting her prediction she said: "I don’t think this will be the year of lots of ads…..my guess is 3." By my count, Carol was right. There were three cause-related ads from Stella Artois, Budweiser and Hyundai. You can watch all the ads here.

The talk about one of these ads didn't stop after the Super Bowl...

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Ep251: This Social Enterprise is Using Shea Butter to Grease Wheels of Progress for African Women

Today on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Rahama Wright, Founder & CEO, Shea Yeleen about her efforts to innovate the shea butter supply chain in West Africa. Her social enterprise Shea Yeleen markets and distributes high quality skincare products, while providing living wages to cooperative members in Northern Ghana. The line of shea butter products is being distributed through retailers such as Whole Foods, MGM Resorts and Amazon

On the show, Megan, Rahama and I discuss...

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Ep250: This New App Helps Investors Track How Spending Impacts the Planet

Today on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Andrei Cherny, CEO and Co-Founder of Aspiration, a financial firm that helps investors make money and make a difference. The firm has also launched an app - Aspiration Impact Measurement (AIM) - that lets investors see the impact they're making on people and the planet based on where they are shopping and spending every day.

On the show, Megan, Andrei and I discuss...

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Ep249: Smoothie King Supports Challenged Athletes with 'Hydrate and Help' Spring Water

Today on CauseTalk Radio Megan and I talk to Jennifer Herskind, Chief Marketing Officer for Smoothie King, about a new partnership with Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people with physical challenges lead active, healthy lifestyles.  

The 900-store chain will be donating $150,000 through a 25 cent donation to CAF with the sale of every newly-branded Hydrate and Help bottle of spring water. The new bottles just became available at stores last month. 

On the show, Megan and I discuss...

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Joe Waters Joe Waters

Friends Listen to Friends: How to Engage Millennials, Gen Z on Instagram [SPONSORED]

How can a brand get one step closer to unlocking the coveted recommendation from a friend? The answer is simple. Don’t look for quantity of followers but quality. Avoid influencers that measure their success (and structure their pricing) based on vanity metrics like impressions. Most importantly, seek opportunities to capture the influencing potential of the average person.

That is the idea behind PurPics...

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Ep247: Emoji Reaction Project Turns Your Facebook 😡 Into Activism

Today on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Dana Stalker and Rachel Frederick, associate creative directors at Droga5, an advertising agency that has developed the Emoji Reaction Project. It's a clever Chrome extension that transforms your negative Facebook emoji reactions into tangible ways to support good causes and fight injustice.

Every time you react with an angry or sad emoji on a post about a particular social or environmental issue, the browser extension prompts you with three options: "Donate," "Do," and "Dial."

On the show, Megan, Dana, Rachel and I discuss...

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Is Your Nonprofit Ready for Product Licensing?

Years ago when I was writing Cause Marketing for Dummies, Joanna MacDonald and I had to write a short section on product licensing. I remember being hesitant to write about it because unlike just about every other topic in the book, neither of us had any experience with product licensing agreements. I always thought of it as an area of opportunity for only the biggest and best known cause brands. Joanna and I advised caution.

My early opinion on product licensing persisted until I met Rachel Leber, the owner of Be Well Brands  (BeWellBrands.com) a cause marketing licensing agency. Rachel explained that a lot had changed so I recently sat down with her to discuss product licensing, how it works and which nonprofits are the best fit for licensing agreements....

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Joe Waters Joe Waters

What I Learned From Writing 31-Days In a Row

Wow. Last day. I have to admit that at the beginning of the month I didn't I would be able to write something every day. But I'm glad I did it. Here's what I learned.

I loved creating something everyday. It was such a good feeling to complete something every day and hitting the publish button. So often we get bogged down in projects that take days or even weeks to complete. It was fun and satisfying to finish something EVERY. DAY.

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Joe Waters Joe Waters

Why I'm Not Publishing a "Best of" Post for 2017

Every year since 2011 I've published an annual Best Cause Marketing Promotions of [INSERT YEAR] the first week of January. But I'm not doing one this year. Here's why.

Mission accomplished. My original goal for writing my "best of" post was to make sure that Selfish Giving showed up prominently in Google when people searched for examples of cause marketing. This has pretty much been accomplished and won't be enhanced by publishing yet another "best of" post. Frankly, while search traffic is important to my site, direct traffic from my newsletter is the the best type of traffic and deserves more of my attention....

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Museums Have A New Purpose: To Help People Find Their Twin Stranger

File this under the bizarre - and also under something I had never heard of until yesterday. People looking for their doppelgänger in museums.

What's a doppelgänger? I asked the same thing. Well, you should check out Wikipedia for the full description, which is fascinating, but it's essentially someone's twin stranger - an unrelated person that looks like them. There are actually sites out there that will help you find your doppelgänger.

Creepy, right?

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