I cruised through the Spirit Halloween store that recently opened in Denver’s Cherry Creek in the old Andrison Morton’s women’s clothing store location.  I was trying to get a head start on my Halloween costume and found a sword that will be perfect.  When I went to buy it, the cashier asked if I would like to donate $2 to the “Spirit of Children” to benefit seriously ill children at Children’s Hospital.  I said sure and was given a treat bag with the Spirit logo and the opportunity to fill out a pumpkin flyer with my name indicating that I had made a donation.  They even rang a bell to “announce” my donation.  On my way out, I noticed there were two large posters behind the cash registers on the wall about the company’s support of kids for Halloween.

When I got home, I checked out their website to see if I could learn more.  The mission statement is “At the heart of Spirit Halloween is the Spirit of Children program, which is devoted to bringing the fun and fantasy of Halloween to children everywhere. The goal is to bring the outside world in to the pediatric patients at hospitals and rehabilitation centers across the nation.”  In 2008, Spirit celebrations were hosted in 50 hospitals in communities across the nation. Over $700,000 in cash and merchandise was donated to this worthy cause.  The goal for 2009 is $825,000 in donations and merchandise for 54 hospitals.

“100% of the money collected and items purchased for the events were donated to the child life departments within the hospitals participating in the Spirit of Children program. Child life departments seek to improve the experience for patients in pediatric centers. Items ranging from flat screen TV’s, DVD players, DVDs, video games, CDs, computers, entertainment centers, baby seats, games and more were purchased with the money raised by Spirit of Children.”  The website also gives links to newspaper articles, TV clips and thank you notes received for this three year old program.

I was impressed with what this seasonal store chain does to support children.  This is a great example of a company asking its customers to joint forces with them to support a cause by making a small financial contribution.  Great job Spirit Halloween!!  You brightened my day hearing about this and undoubtably you brighten the day of many children in your 50+ hospitals around the country.

I was watching TV last night and at the end of a typical Pizza Hut commercial featuring cheese in their crust, there was a different ending that caught my attention.  Pizza Hut is supporting the movement to end world hunger by supporting the World Food Program through their Friends organization. 

Going to the Pizza Hut website today, on their home page, there was a link to the World Hunger 2008 effort with the tag that $1 feeds 4 children.  The WFP Friends site states, “World Hunger Relief gives a voice to the silent crisis of hunger by generating awareness among millions of people across the globe. Join Yum! Brands and its 35,000 restaurants worldwide in the movement to end world hunger. By donating to Friends of the World Food Program, you provide a basic necessity for life and hope to the world’s hungry. Give today.”  The site offers the option of making a one-time donation or donations over time. 

The Friends site gives a lot of data about world hunger and describes the various programs offered by the organization.  Check it out!

I got an “personalized” email today with the Starbucks Gold News.  At the bottom, they provided me a visual of the amount of money my dividend amounted to – which will be donated to the nonprofit I selected when I signed up.  So the dollar amount ($3.07) for last month is not large based on how much I spent at Starbucks.  However, that they track it… AND let me know…is a great way to keep me hooked in and feeling good about my cappuccino addiction!

What I would now like to see from Starbucks (and hopefully they will do this in the future – the program is only a month old) is how much has been raised TOTAL for the two nonprofits customers can choose to support by donating our dividends.

So, if you are doing a cause marketing promotion with your customers…what are you doing to update your customers periodically – both about the piece they have contributed to the cause you are supporting as well as how much you have raised overall… of which their piece is only a small part?  If you are not sharing that information, you could end up losing business down the road.

My computer is not behaving well again today.  It hasn’t been the same since Best Buy replaced the motherboard.  I decided to do what I can do to see what is going on and went to Trend Micro to run their HouseCall program to detect virus and malware etc that might be on my computer.  “HouseCall™ is a FREE Web-based tool designed to scan your PC for a wide range of Internet security threats including viruses, worms, Trojans, and spyware.” 

On the page for HouseCall, I noticed the following statement:”After scanning for viruses and spyware, why not spend an extra two minutes to express your appreciation for HouseCall by a charitable donation to Schools Online! ”
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I got a “personalized” email today from United Airlines asking me (a customer!) to join their efforts to leverage support for China earthquake relief through their partership with the American Red Cross.  I liked they were proactive in sending out the request to their huge network of frequent flyers and offered me an easy way to get involved to do my little part to help out.  I also liked that they said “no contribution is too small.”  They are offering 500 miles as an incentive for a minimum $50 donation which helps spur me to action – how about you?

Dear Ms. Susan Hyatt,

On May 12, a powerful earthquake struck Sichuan province in southwestern China with a devastating impact on the lives and livelihood of millions of people. Our customers can assist the response effort by contributing through the American Red Cross to the China Earthquake Relief Fund.

Mileage Plus customers who donate $50USD or more will receive 500 miles as a one-time bonus. The United Airlines Foundation will support customers’ donations with up to 5 million miles for this bonus mile offer. In order to receive the miles, email your electronic American Red Cross receipt to ChinaRelief-Miles@united.com. 

No contribution is too small.

We thank you in advance for your support and generosity, and for partnering with United to make the world a better place to live, work, travel and do business.”

Nicely done, United! Are there causes YOUR company cares about for which you could leverage your networks to provide greater assistance/support than you could using only your own philanthropy budget? The name of the game is to think partnership…not just with nonprofits, but also with customers and other stakeholders.

On my United flight to DC this week, I found a one page Landing Page article published in the January 2008 issues of Hemispheres, the United Airlines inflight magazine on the Kenny Hugyou teddy bear promotion mentioned in my January 8 blog entry.  While I understand there is a different writing style for a magazine versus an online article, I was surprised to find the full details of this effort are only available by reading both versions – something most customers probably won’t do.  The magazine piece tells readers “United customers and employees show their compassion with a cleverly named bear.”  The promotion appears to be sponsored by the United Foundation as there is a quote from Sonya Jackson, the Foundation president, in the article about cancer being an important issue for their customers and employees.  So, the magazine article answers a couple questions I raised previously about why the American Cancer Society, who was responsible for implementing the promotion and the role of employees.  While employees are mentioned, their real role is not - are employees (like customers) donors of miles and dollars, project coordinators, teddy bear delivery people, or…?    The Hemispheres article mentions joining forces with their many customers who support of the American Cancer Society which tells me there WAS a strategic decision made by the Foundation to support this cause as a way to appeal to customer and employee values and concerns.  Glad to see they mentioned that explicitly.  The magazine article also provides a sentence educating readers about ACS’s programming. 

So I feel better about this initiative now.  However, I do wonder why the Hemisphere’s article did not mention that the special opportunity to donate miles or dollars for teddy bears for child cancer patients would end January 31st or give an email link inviting participation as it is only mid-January and there are a couple weeks left before it ends.  Unfortunately, interested customers won’t be able to participate unless they do some digging.  The online version does mention the window of opportunity and provides buttons making it easy for customers to donate.  There is one button for miles and another for dollars.  Am I to assume the desired outcome of both written pieces was different?  Action online and awareness in the print version?