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...

Today on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Kathleen Janus, social entrepreneur, author and lecturer at Stanford University, about a great, new book: Social Startup Success: How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up, and Make a Difference.

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

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...

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...

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....

Today on CauseTalk Radio, Megan and I talk to Anne Kalmer Cainion, Director of Philanthropy and Community Relations BelAir Cantina, a chain of six restaurants in Wisconsin that are giving back to great causes via their Powered by Tacos (PBT) fundraiser.

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

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.

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....

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?

One mistake nonprofits make when it comes to recruiting cause marketing partners is not having a corporate partners page on their website. The second mistake is not having case studies on that corporate partners page.

The latter is especially important. Here's why.

ZMOT is real. The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) refers to the fact that prospects are researching your site before they ever pick up the phone or email you....

Now that I've been writing for every day for a month, I want you to take up a writing challenge in 2018. I think people want to create more content! But they always seem at a loss for content ideas.

Here's the good news: content ideas are all around you. You just need to put on your "content glasses" to see them. Let me explain...

I'm in the last week of my 31-day cause marketing challenge and I'm ready to take some questions for readers.

One reader asks: "What's your process for writing a day? Is it hard?"

I'll get to the question about whether it's hard in a minute. Let me explain the process first.

I publish first thing in the morning. I read the post once for edits, etc. and then hit publish. I then share it on social media and add the post to the draft of my email newsletter.

There's a famous scene in A Christmas Carol after Scrooge has been visited by the three ghosts. Much to his surprise, he awakes in his bed and realizes he survived the night. Relieved, Scrooge pledges to "Live in the past, the present and the future."

It's a lesson we could all learn from. Yes, each and everyone...

I read a ton of books this past year! I read everything: fiction, history, biography, marketing, technology, memoir and everything else. I'll tell you about them sometime. 😁 For now, here are five books I read that helped me improve as a cause marketer.

1. Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World. This is a great book all about the changing landscape of retail, which is by far the #1 industry for us cause marketers. I love how this book is laid out with an emphasis on a different disruption or technology and how it's impacting retail. Must read!

I took a peek into my Google analytics this weekend and here are the ten most popular cause marketing posts on Selfish Giving in 2017. Enjoy!

1. 10 Best Cause Marketing Promotions of 2016 [SLIDESHARE]. My annual review of cause marketing promotions is always my most popular post!

If you liked this post, read this next: I've done "Best Cause Marketing" posts in 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012  and 2011. Check them all out!

A few years go I wrote glowingly about Wreaths Across America (WAA) and their mission to lay wreaths on the graves of fallen soldiers. This is important and powerful work and WAA became a big part of the speeches I delivered that year. I couldn't say enough good things about them.

Then, in 2015, the Wall Street Journal published an article that unnerved me.

Cash is not king. Just stand in line at a Starbucks and count how many people use a credit card or their phone to pay.

I'm wondering how this is impacting donation box fundraisers? People just don't have cash and coins in their hands like they used to.

Earlier this month, I wrote about how I'm donating to every Salvation Army red kettle this season. Coming out of the supermarket the other day, I had to literally prepare myself to give. I paid for my groceries with a card, but had to ask the cashier for cash back so I could put a few bucks in the kettle outside.

Giving cash is hard work! 

If you are a new visitor to my website you probably saw my "welcome mat" that drops down and asks you to join my email newsletter list. (I hope you joined because I send out an AWESOME newsletter every Wednesday morning.)

But it's annoying, right? You just want to get to what you are looking for. That's why you are thinking, "Why would I want a welcome mat or pop-up on my website. It's irritating!"

Well, there are a couple reasons why you would still want to use a pop-up.