Tomorrow's my birthday!

Truthfully, I don't like getting gifts on my birthday. What can you give the guy who has everything, including loyal email subscribers? In true Selfish Giving style, I'd rather GIVE presents to others on my birthday - and maybe get a few karma points in return!🤞

Are you ready? Here's what you get to choose from. HIT REPLY to this email and pick a FIRST and SECOND choice…

Surprise, surprise. Companies are cheap. Many only give one percent of their pretax profits back to charity. Compare that to individuals who give between double and triple the amount that company's give.

Of the $410 billion donated to nonprofits last year, companies only contributed five percent to that total. Womp womp.

That's why every nonprofit should be targeting a company's employees and customers - and not limiting themselves to the company's checkbook. Let the company be a conduit to individual giving - the biggest slice of the charity pie.

GameStop is uniting the gaming community TODAY to raise $100,000 to support Make-A-Wish Foundation and Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. And I'll be watching it all on Twitter where they are having an all-day Twitter-a-thon.

Cool, I thought! "But will the tweet-storm raise any money," I asked a GameStop rep. We'll see. With over one million Twitter followers surely they can raise some money! I'll be watching. Want to join me?

Bob Schultz at The CauseWay Agency is on one to make nonprofits better storytellers - and he’s bringing in a big gun to help: storytelling expert Jenny Riddle.

Together, Bob and Jenny will be leading a FREE webinar on September 19th at 2:30pm ET on The Power of Strategic Storytelling. You can sign up here.

Among other things, Jenny will be discussing... [Read Jenny's tips and signup for the FREE WEBINAR]

I often talk about content marketing, but at the heart of the strategy is great storytelling. The fact is that nonprofits should be great storytellers, but they’re not. They struggle with it - despite its obvious importance to their success with donors, supporters and corporate partners.

As the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose has said, “It's weirdly ironic to me that nonprofits have a struggle making a business case for content [storytelling]. Because mission is the story, right?"

Speaking of mission, Bob Schultz at The CauseWay Agency is on one to make nonprofits better storytellers - and he’s bringing in a big gun to help: storytelling expert Jenny Riddle.

Together, Bob and Jenny will be leading a FREE live webinar on September 19th at 2:30pm EDT on The Power of Strategic Storytelling. You can sign up here.

Thanks to everyone who supported my fundrasier for John Haydon last week. We're over $14,000! 🤗

With Labor Day right around the corner be sure to check out the two jobs I posted below for my client ServeMinnesota. They are smartly leading with content marketing and are looking for two wicked awesome professionals to work with me in becoming a content-driven, mega-successful organization.

Have a great and safe long weekend!

I've launched a page on my website with ways that you can work with me beyond speaking and consulting. I'll be growing this list in the coming months, but the first two offerings formalize something I've been doing for months now: Newsletters Sponsorships and Sponsored Posts. With September mostly booked, I'm looking for October sponsors!

I had to apologize to my mom last week. After taking her to the hair dresser I didn't have time for lunch. "That fine," she said. "But pull into Burger King because I'm craving a Whopper." As soon as I pulled up to order I got a recorded message asking me to donate a buck to The Jimmy Fund. Of course, I said yes...and then peppered the cashier with questions about the program, which she politely answered.

A few quick lessons about point-of-sale programs that include a paper icon…

The dog days of summer are here! It seems like the perfect time to ask you a favor. Choose ONE ACTION below....

Do you love getting my newsletter? Do you find it useful? Do you look forward to getting it every week? If so, first, thank you! I'm writing it just for you. 😀Second, please forward it to others who might enjoy it?

OR

Are you a sporadic reader? Did you open it today just hoping to find something interesting to distract you from your work, which probably isn't in some aspect of corporate partnerships? Do me a favor and hit the unsubscribe button at the bottom of this newsletter.

The other day on the James Altucher Show marketing guru Seth Godin was asked how to accomplish our work in the world. According to Seth:

Zig Ziglar used to say, "You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want." I just like the help other people get what they want part.

You should adopt this approach for corporate partnerships.

The North Face, which turned mountain-climbing into a conversation about inclusion with Walls Are Meant For Climbing campaign, is broadening the effort this year, focusing on more public climbing walls.

The program culminates on World Climbing Day, August 18th. TNF plans to donate $1 for every person who climbs that day, with a cap of $100,000. Although TNF is continuing its partnership with The Trust for Public Land (we interviewed them on CauseTalk Radio in September), these funds will go to the Khumbu Climbing Center.

Just about every day someone asks for my opinion on something related to corporate partnerships. Frankly, I expend most of my breath debunking myths about partnership practices! My best responses include lots of facts and figures to support my position. But, honestly, good research is hard to come by. 

That’s one reason I’m so excited about a new report from For Momentum, an Atlanta-based agency that specializes in building strategic cause alliances. Their new report High Expectations: Corporate Partnership Decision-Makers Research Results is full of myth-busting stats on what companies are REALLY looking for in a nonprofit partnership…

As I forewarned you two weeks ago, this is a super-abbreviated version of my newsletter as I'm finishing up my summer vacation to England. It's been fun! But I'm looking forward to returning to regular programming next week.

Cheers!

I love holidays because cause marketing campaigns tend to be clustered around them. Last week's holiday, Independence Day, was no exception. My favorite campaign last week? A hashtag campaign from Keep American Beautiful (KAB) and Fishbrain. The latter bills itself as the most popular mobile app for people who love fishing. They have four million users! There truly is an app for everything, right?

Working together, KAB and Fishbrain launched the largest-ever one-day crowdsourced audit of litter in the U.S. App users were encouraged to remove litter while fishing and upload the images with the hashtag #trashoftheday.

I loved this campaign for two reasons…

Happy Fourth of July! Because of the holiday I'm publishing an abbreviated newsletter this week.

I'll be back next week with a full newsletter. But as I'm in London the following week, you may see another abbreviated newsletter on Wednesday, July 18th. Try to be patient with me. 🙂

Two weeks ago I wrote about using Facebook to promote your corporate partnerships. I mentioned that in some states it may be illegal to promote your partnerships because of commercial co-venture laws.

That's not quite true, according to my supah-smaht friend and cause marketing lawyer, Karen Wu….

I don't leave Boston often, but when I do it's for two reasons. The first is to visit YOU to help with your your cause marketing campaigns. The second is to to go London! Did you know that I'm a yuuuge Anglophile?

That's why I'm heading to London next month and I want to meet you for a Cup of Joe! If you're interested in learning more, just hit reply. The first week of July I'll send you an email with a time and location. I'm staying near Westminster Abbey (I know, so touristy!) so it will be near or at my hotel…

Here's a fact for you. Corporate partners expect you to promote their partnership with your nonprofit. And they want that promotion done digitally. Your snail mail print newsletter isn't going to cut it.

To accomplish this for partners, nonprofits have two challenges…