Ever feel like your company does not have sufficient financial resources to contribute as much as you’d like to local nonprofits?  Here is an idea that I personally do that can be done by ANY company that has employee travel — all it takes is a little time and a minimal amount of extra room in a suitcase. 

As you know, hotels provide personal product amenities in your hotel bathroom.  If you use them one day, they provide a new set for the next day when they clean your room.  If you are like me, you don’t actually use all of those bottles of lotions and potions or maybe you take your own along or don’t like the brands they use. 

So here is the idea…every day, take the bottles you don’t open to use (you’ve already paid for them…) and put them in your suitcase, maybe using the plastic laundry bag from the closet hanger so things won’t leak on your clothes during the trip home.  The cleaning folks will give you a new set and you can do it again for each night you are on the road. 

Back at the office, set up a collection point somewhere at your location and have everyone that travels deposit their extra toiletries there.  Then periodically take all the collected items and drop them off at a shelter – maybe for the homeless or battered women.  This doesn’t really cost your company anything extra but can be a much appreciated donation for a worthy organization trying to make ends meet.  Remember this on your next trip!!

OK, I haven’t been able to let (PRODUCT)RED go yet…I burned out before checking Converse’s site earlier this week to look into their (PRODUCT)RED for my post on February 16.  I felt bad about not checking out one of the major sponsors, so have now gone to their website – a very hip site with cool graphics.  Their homepage has a link to their 1HUND(RED) page which then has a link to the four shoes already specially designed for the campaign by various artists – Michael White, Camilla Engman, Tom Liles, and Meghan Berckes, in addition to the other shoes offered by Chuck Taylor.  The site clearly states they give 10% of net wholesale prices to the Global Fund though I could not find a report or summary of the giving for last year from the campaign. 

In their press section, a June 14, 2007 press release announced, “Converse announces today that Common, Grammy award winning hip-hop artist and actor, will be the face of Converse (PRODUCT) RED.  Common will appear in Converse’s first national print campaign to further support Converse’s partnership with (PRODUCT) RED.  The Fall 2007 advertising campaign is entitled “Weapon of Change” featuring irreverent messages and bold illustrations encouraging consumers to be optimistic rebels and become agents of change.  The Converse (PRODUCT) RED Weapon® will be available exclusively through Foot Locker, Inc. and on www.converse.com.”  Later in the release it said, “Depending on the product sold, 5% – 15% of net sales from Converse (PRODUCT) RED shoes will go to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Geneva, Switzerland).  (PRODUCT) RED is an economic initiative created by Bono (U2, singer and activist) and Bobby Shriver (Chairman of DATA – Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), designed to deliver a sustainable flow of private sector money to the Global Fund to invest in African AIDS programs with an emphasis on the health of women and children.”

OK…so now I am done with RED for now!!  Onwards!

Did you get your New Year’s Resolutions set for your company’s 2008 community involvement?  Did you set specific goals?  Did you develop a written action plan with goals, tasks, and responsibilities clearly defined?  We are almost two months into 2008 now, how are you doing?  Have you stayed focused?  Made progress?  If you did not do a plan yet, it is definitely not too late…start one today!

The beginning of a new fiscal/calendar year is a perfect time to revisit your company’s community involvement mission and strategy and to make specific plans for the coming year.  If you don’t have a written plan, it is way too easy to dilute your impact by being all over the map with your contributions, become overextended with your scarce resources, and cause confusion among employees and other stakeholders about the focus and true commitment of your company’s philanthropic actions.  Also, without a written plan as your map, it is hard to know when you have achieved what you set out to do.  While the feel good part of community involvement is great, there is the potential for much more significant impact for all concerned with just a bit of planning and strategy

The following are the two minimum steps we suggest all businesses take at this time of year.  In the first step you need to revisit last year’s contributions – even if only briefly.  In the second step, you need to set some goals and targets for the upcoming year. Hopefully, you already have instituted in-depth systems for both these processes.  If not, this should help get you started.  If you need help, send us an email at info@bnconnections.com.

The following series of questions are meant as food for thought as you or a committee of employees and/or other stakeholders make your 2008 plans.

Reviewing 2007:

• What organizations or causes did our company support over the past year?
• What process did we use to select them?  How did that work?
• How did we support them (dollars, in-kind, people, commerce)?
• What was the total dollar value of all of our contributions (not just the tax deductable amount)?
• What percentage of either our gross revenue or net profit was our total contribution?
• What significant benefit did our support leverage for the community?  For our company?
• Were our community involvement efforts consciously tied to our business goals?
• What lessons did we learn this last year?  What do we want to be sure to do again?  What do we want to change?

Planning for 2008:

• What resources (cash, in-kind, people) do we anticipate sharing in 2008? How much of each?
• Do we have options for engaging in commerce-based activities with nonprofits?
• What is the target percentage for our overall contribution? (1%, 2%, 3%, 5%, 10%, 100%,??)  Of sales?  Profit?
• What is the targeted total dollar value?
• Are there financial trends for our company that we need to pay attention to when thinking about our community involvement?
• Given this projected level of resources, what strategy will we use to allocate our resources this year?
• What causes or organizations will we focus on working with or supporting this year?  Why?
• How will we select them?  Is there a process or is it first come, first served?
• Do any of these link with our other business goals for 2008?  If so, how?
• Are there times of year that are not good for heavy involvement due to existing commitments and work flow?
• How will we time our various types of involvement for this year?  One big project?  Something each quarter?  Ongoing?  Or…?
• What are our specific goals?
• What action steps do we need to achieve our goals?
• Who (person, department, team or??) will have responsibility for which pieces?
• What are our tracking and reporting expectations?
• How and with whom will we share information about our effort?

The (PRODUCT)RED Campaign is certainly causing a lot of buzz.  There was a letter on the Red Campaign in the NY Times 2/15/2008 from Jennifer Howse, President of the March of Dimes.  Her main point was about the transparency of the level of donations given as a result of purchases of RED products from participating companies.  “Red participating companies would be wise to initiate a high-profile announcement of their annual contribution in the aggregate. No one expects companies like Gap, Dell or Armani to disclose proprietary sales data — but more transparency in reporting contributions could help remove doubts. And it could help sustain this interesting and productive approach to corporate social responsibility. ”

I totally agree with her sentiment about this.  As I mentioned in my previous post about Hallmark, they have clearly posted on their website that they contribute 8% of the net wholesale price to the effort.  I went back to their website to do a little detective work to find specific figures for how much they actually donated to (PRODUCT)RED last year.  The Hallmark website has a community involvement page which lists RED as one of its partners.  When clicking on the link, a press release from October 12, 2007 announcing the start of the partnership pulls up.  The release talks about the overall amount of money generated by the campaign but gives no specifics on Hallmark’s contribution as this is the announcement of a new effort by the company.  I hadn’t realized Hallmark has only been part of the campaign for four months.  It does, however, state “Eight percent of net wholesales from all Hallmark (PRODUCT) RED products will go to the Global Fund. For the consumer, this means the purchase of one (PRODUCT) RED Card with Sound (retail price of $4.99) will result in a contribution equivalent to a single-dose treatment used to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV from mother to child during childbirth.”  So, next year Hallmark should have some specific figures to share.

Next I went to the Dell website and found their press release from January 28, 2008.  It states, “With each purchase of a (PRODUCT) RED branded Dell personal computer including Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED, Dell and Microsoft will make a combined contribution of $50 to $80 – depending on the PC purchased – to the Global Fund. Purchase of a Dell (PRODUCT) RED printer generates a $5 Dell contribution. One hundred percent of the funds contributed go to Global Fund-financed grants in Africa.  An $80 contribution generated by the choice of a Dell (PRODUCT) RED all-in-one PC with Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED is equivalent to more than six months of life-saving antiretroviral treatment for an individual living with AIDS in Africa.”  So that is pretty clear.  Again this is a really new partnership so there are no figures yet for how many dollars are flowing to the campaign.

So what about some of the other companies?  I went to the RED site to figure out who else is a partner so I could keep digging.  Motorola became a partner in 2006.  From their Corporate Responsibility page, I linked to a May 7, 2007 press release on their website says, “$30.8 million donated to charities and good causes by Motorola and the Motorola Foundation — In 2006, the company became a contributing partner of (PRODUCT) RED to help fight HIV/AIDS through mobile phone sales, mobilized employees to community service through its first Global Day of Service and inspired the next generation of inventors by funding initiatives that boost science, technology, engineering and math education.” The figures are not RED specific however so I went to their full Corporate Responsibility Report to see if I could find any figures.  I did!  In 2006, they report having contributed $12 million of which $7 million came from RED phone sales plus another $5 million from their foundation.  On Page 8, I found the following.

That is a lot of money considering, “In the US, a $8.50 contribution is made on the sale of the red MOTORAZR V3m phone. In the US, a $2.50 contribution is made on the sale of the red BluetoothT Headset H500.”  Having now at looked at many of the other participating companies’ sites, I would like to applaud Motorola for making their data so clear and easy to find.  They get the prize!!

 The Gap page on the RED website states 50% of the profits from sales of items go to the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.  Gap has its own RED pages, as well.  I went to their Social Responsibility pages and found the link to another RED page.  There is information in A LOT of places – but I am still having trouble finding what I am looking for!!!!  I went to the Social Responsibility Report’s community investment pages and found figures for other initiatives but not RED.  So I gave up.

Armani contributed an average of 40% of gross profit from the sales of RED products to the Global Fund.  I couldn’t find any information about dollars contributed on their site or in their Annual Report but I can’t claim having done an exhaustive search.

American Express RED  gives 1% of your total spend to the Global Fund.  Unfotunately, this card is only available in the UK at this time.  For more info, click here.  Too bad we in the US can’t get one.  The monthly statement tells you how much your personal contribution to REDMoney was from using the card.  I looked around on their American Express RED site and in their Corporate Citizenship Report for details.  Couldn’t find any figures though RED was mentioned on page 22 of the report – they may be there somewhere but I couldn’t find them easily.

The Global Fund website does give pledge dollars but aggregated amounts for PRODUCT RED.  Couldn’t find any company specific data there either. 

OK…so I now TOTALLY agree that it would be a good idea to add a page to the www.joinred.com site that not only tells the aggregated total contribution by all partners but also breaks out the contributions from each individual company partner.  Not many people will go through what I just did to try to figure it out and it IS frustrating to come up empty handed in many cases after all that effort.  Please…make it more transparent starting now!

My sister really has me figured out - she came up with the perfect card for me for Valentine’s Day yesterday.  It is a Hallmark card that just says PAMPE(RED) on the front.  Inside it said, “DO WHATEVER MAKES YOUR HEART HAPPY. INDULGE TODAY!  HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY.”  The back  asks, “Is it a card or a way to help eliminate AIDS in Africa?  When you choose Hallmark (PRODUCT) RED cards, it’s both.”  It’s a great card and thoughtful because she knows I am fanatical about tracking what companies are doing to to give back.

So for my guilty confession – I did get it together this year to send Valentines to my sister and niece, my parents and my mentee.  However, to make it happen, I did the easiest thing and bought them at Target in one fell swoop.  I do know Target does give back a lot especially for education-related programs so I feel good about buying things there – but the link between my purchase and their give back is a little fuzzy.  If I had gone to a Hallmark store and bought a (Hallmark)RED card and spent the same $2.99 I spent elsewhere, I would know in a different way that a percentage of my purchase price was going to help the (PRODUCT)RED initiative to combat AIDS in Africa.   Their website says “HALLMARK IS A PROUD PARTNER OF (PRODUCT) RED™. 8% of Hallmark (PRODUCT) RED™ net wholesale sales will go to the Global Fund. Learn more.”  OK, so that’s not a huge amount of money from one card but at least they are very transparent about how much it really is, something that many other companies avoid.

Onwards…next holiday I will check the Hallmark cards FIRST!  How about you?

Marathon Oil Company ran an ad several times lately in the Denver Post with the headline, “Marathon is much more than our employer.  They’re our inspiration.”  The ads don’t sell anything directly – instead they are designed to inform readers about Marathon’s values and give back efforts.  The ad pictures a mother/daughter pair who both work for the company and the words are written as if the mother was saying them.  The mother is a breast cancer survivor and the daughter is pregnant.  The ad mentions she is doing all she can to keep her daughter from getting breast cancer and “that’s why I am proud to work for a company that gives so much to so many great causes, such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure.”  The ad goes on to mention other efforts including Impact Player Partners (an organization supporting wounded/disabled war veterans from the Iraq and Afganistan wars) and a school supply project in Equatorial Guinea.   It ends with “And this is only the beginning of all the things that Marathon does.  Needless to say, we love working here.  Giving back.  That’s Marathon.”  The bottom of the ad shows their color logo and the website address – Marathon.com/values. 

I went to their website and was pleasantly surprised to see a link on their home page to their Social Responsibility page.  I really liked their tag line “Commerce.  Conscience.  Compassion.” They have a menu of options to choose from here.

Good for Marathon!  Made me very interested to learn more about this company that I know relatively little about.  It is amazing to me how many companies have not yet been proactive to post a section on their sites to let consumers and other stakeholders know about their social responsibility and/or community involvement.  I did an informal survey a couple years ago with the top 40 fastest growing small businesses in Colorado from the Book of Lists published by the Denver Business Journal.  I went to each of their websites and only two of them mentioned anything about their community involvement.  What a missed opportunity!!  And I know for a fact that two of them that mentioned nothing on their site are VERY active with local nonprofits.  In fact, one I had interviewed as a best practice example for my forthcoming book!

Do you have even one page on YOUR company’s website that talks about your community involvement and/or broader commitment to business social responsibility?  If you aren’t doing anything…then having no page makes total sense.  However, consumers DO care about what the companies they do business with are doing.  So think about putting up at least a simple page.  It does not need to be as detailed as Marathon Oil’s.  You can grow into that later.  If you don’t it is a huge missed opportunity to let folks know about your values and how you are walking your talk.

I went to American Airlines website today to check on a flight and noticed the image above.  American Airlines has a promotion going through the end of February to encourage their customers to donate dollars to UNICEF.  As a thank you, they will give the donor 2 miles for every dollar contributed online.  I clicked the link to be able to give…and it got confusing.  The landing page you get to from the AA home page states the promotion runs from November 1 through February 28, 2008.  But when I clicked through on February 7, 2008 (21 days bfore the end of the promotion) to the donations page, I was greeted with the statement, “The American Airlines and UNICEF promotion for AAdvantage® members has now ended. We thank you for your generous contributions during this time period and encourage your continued support of UNICEF’s work for child survival.”  What’s up with that?  I might have been able to fill out their online form anyway and try to make a donation even though the header says its over but I did not try.

OK…tip:  Make sure if you do a promotion like this one to double check dates and messages.  I wonder how many people were turned away from donating because the two pages were not in sync..???  Nice to support UNICEF but it seems someone dropped a ball here.

Joe Water provided a link on his blog, Selfish Giving, to a Jeff Trexler post on www.uncivilsociety.org, titled, “Charitable causes trivialized” at the Super Bowl”.  In Trexler’s post, he talks about Advertising Age critic Bob Garfield’s video critiquing the Super Bowl ads and “cause marketing gone wrong”.  Trexler says, “Garfield’s take on the Dell Red ad is well worth noting: it turns AIDS into a “chick magnet.” And be sure to watch long enough (around 4:30) for an essential critique of McDonald’s senseless conflation of its “I’m Lovin’ It” slogan with cancer. Garfield’s core point: our “ROI culture” seems to have erased an earlier generation’s understanding of the rhetoric of corporate charity and branding.”

I downloaded the podcast and watched the video myself.  Take a look, if you have not already seen it.  The text below the video states, “”Is it right to turn cause marketing for AIDS or cancer cures into such a hard sell for the Dell or McDonald’s products?”  Good food for thought.  

I believe businesses need to let consumers know how they are supporting important causes.  According to a 2006 poll on Millenials by Cone Inc., a marketing agency in Boston, 89 percent of Americans between 13 and 25 would switch from one brand to another associated with a “good cause,” if products and prices were comparable. Their 2006 Holiday Shopping Survey found “More than six-out-of-ten shoppers said that they are likely to consider a company’s reputation for supporting causes when purchasing gifts this holiday season.”

One way to harness the power of business to support causes is through cause marketing (though there are also many other options for support of nonprofits for companies to choose from.) Cause marketing is defined as “a commercial activity resulting from a partnership between a company and a nonprofit organization to market an image, product or service for mutual benefit”, according to Business for Social Responsibility’s publication from the late 1990s on Cause Related Marketing.  In a typical cause marketing relationship, a company donates “a portion of each purchase made by customers during a specific period of time to an organization representing a cause or issue.”  Some cause marketing campaigns do not “channel money to nonprofits; some engage principally in educational or awareness-building activities.”

So you can choose not to like cause marketing as an approach but you need to realize that such efforts usually have been found to be very mutually beneficial for the business and the nonprofit.  When a nonprofit signs on with a business for a cause marketing campaign, they know full well their name and reputation will be used to increase sales for the business as a way also to generate dollars for themselves.  It’s win/win.

I don’t think either the Dell or McDonalds commercials trivialize the causes these campaigns were designed to support.  And remember these were ads during super prime time not public service announcements run at 2:00 am.  Dell does not try to directly tug at your heart strings to make a donation to AIDS, they are selling computers, raising awareness of (RED) and in the end people in Africa do benefit.  McDonalds is going directly for the heart strings connection through its ad.  Fine way to go and…why shouldn’t viewers know what the company is doing to support cancer victims, such as the one featured in the ad?  Most folks think they only support sick kids.

Seems like lot of hullabaloo going on to me…maybe some tweaks to the “earlier generation’s understanding of the rhetoric of corporate charity and branding” would make it more effective in 2008 as a way to generate resources to take on the world’s problems.

My last post about (PRODUCT) RED talked about the campaign and what it is designed to do, as well as some concerns about how socially responsible the products being sold actually are.  (RED) continues to create a lot of buzz – I think the Super Bowl ads run by Dell computer last Sunday featuring their (RED) laptop brought the campaign front and center as it was such a widely watched event. 

Today there was an article by Ron Nixon in the NY Times  titled “Bottomline for (Red).”  Nixon reports that at one Rwandan Treatment and Research AIDS Center, things have much improved according to the center’s managing director, Dr. Anita Asiimwe.  She “thanks an unlikely benefactor for all these improvements: the American shopper.”  In his article Nixon states, “Just over a year ago, the rock star Bono started Red, a campaign that combined consumerism and altruism. Since then, consumers have generated more than $22 million to fight H.I.V. and AIDS in Rwanda by buying iPods, T-shirts, watches, cologne and most recently — as anyone who watched the Super Bowl knows — laptops, with all of them branded “(Product)RED.”  Nixon then goes on to express concerns that in spite of the clear good from the campaign in Rwanda  –33 new testing and treatment centers built, medicine supplies provided for more than 6,000 women to keep them from transmitting H.I.V. to their babies, and counseling and testing financed for thousands more patients — there are issues with the campaign.  “Detractors say Red has fallen short. They criticize a lack of transparency at the company and its partners over how much they make from Red products, and whether they spend more money on Africa or advertising.”

Depending on the participating company and their (RED) item, there are varying amounts of money allocated from the sale of the product to the campaign.  For example, “1 percent of all spending on American Express’s Red cards goes to the fund, as do 50 percent of net profits from the sale of Gap Red items and $8.50 from each sale of a Motorola Red Motorazr.”

So this is a tough one.  Where exactly is the line between doing well and doing good in the eyes of consumers and companies themselves?  Corporate advertising dollars are used to promote the Product (RED) campaign.  Consumers buy (RED) items made by various participating companies because they want to offer their support of programs in Africa to combat the AIDS epidemic.  And for every item purchased some percentage goes to fund the programs and services.  The company wins – it’s good for PR, reputational capital, and sales to be part of this high profile campaign that IS doing a lot of good on the ground.  The consumer wins – they get a cool product that makes a clear statement about their values and they know their purchase helps fund good things.  Obviously  the company is in this to make money – and why not?  If these products weren’t generating income, many would NOT be donating dollars at this level in a focused campaign as part of an alliance with other companies as a way to counter the AIDS epidemic.  I agree where it gets sticky is in the allocation of resources – how much of the sales earnings go to advertising and how much to (RED) programs in Africa.  But, it is a chicken and egg problem - less dollars for advertising probably means fewer sales which results in reduced dollars to give so fewer people can be served.  

I am all about “all win”, authentic, enlightened self interested involvement by companies with causes and nonprofits/NGOs.  I believe that we need a new paradigm for how better to tap business resources to make things happen locally and globaly to address the social ills of our times — and it’s not all about charitable contributions.  I believe the “unwritten requirement” of having a totally altruistic, charity mindset limits possibilities for businesses.  For me, there is a difference between individual philanthropy and BUSINESS PHILANTHROPY.  Strategic community involvement means building on the core business strengths, mission, products/services, and resources of a given company to make a unique contribution in the world.  Increasingly, companies are choosing to use a commerce model instead of “handouts” which I think helps with sustainability for the effort and introduces innovation into solving social ills.  Clearly the model of charitable contributions alone has not solved the world’s problems.  Let’s try some new things!!

A commercial on television caught my eye recently – it showcased a program by Always to help girls in Africa be able to go to school using great photography and a clear description of the problem.  The ad ended with a URL www.protectingfutures.com that I only now had the chance to check out. 

Visit ProtectingFutures.com

“Your purchase of Tampax or Always helps us donate $1.4 million through 2008 to the United Nations Association’s HERO campaign to help provide feminine protection and education to girls in Southern Africa.”  HERO is a United Nations Association’s campaign dedicated to the care of orphans and vulnerable children in Africa.  HERO is designed to build awareness and raise funds “dedicated to providing comprehensive, school-based support to orphans and vulnerable children living in HIV/AIDS-affected communities in Africa. HERO works in schools in Southern Africa to reduce the negative impact of poverty and HIV/AIDS on children.  HERO has identified staying in school as the first line of defense against these ills.”

Girls in the Protecting Futures program learn about and receive products to help insure that their monthly periods do not get in their way of education. The program funds a health, hygiene and puberty education program that will be taught by a traveling health educator, as well as health care services. 

This is a great example of a globally focused give back program that is directly related to the two Proctor & Gamble brands – Tampax and Always.  They are providing integrated support by both donating product as well as funding other health care and educational services for the girls – which is great.  I really like the website as well – it puts a human face on the issue and makes me want to buy those brands to help out.  The website also provides options for other ways to get involved and has a teen feel to it to appeal to and involve teenage girls in the US.  Also, great marketing – buy more and girls in Africa will benefit.