Hope you had a great Halloween!  This morning as I removed my Denver Post newspaper from the plastic bag it was delivered in, I noticed that instead of the usual orange bag, today it was white.  As I smoothed out the bag, I saw the Season to Share logo as seen to the left and the website address so I looked closer.

Season to Share is the giving program of the Denver Post and the McCormick Education Fund.   The bad said in bold letters across the top, “Giving more together.  Every dollar donated is matched with 50 cents.  Look for the special Season to Share section in today’s paper or visit www.SeasontoShare.com.”

On the front page of the Denver Post main section, in the prime space above the crease, there was a small block “teaser” article “A Way That You Can Help.”  “Season to Share, The Denver Post’s annual campaign to help children and those who are hungry, homeless or in need of medical care, kicks off today.  Learn more about the program and how to donate in our 12-page special section.”

The Season to Share special section had articles about various nonprofit beneficiaries and the work they do in the community, as well as a list of each of the 74 organizations they supported through Season to Share.  In 2008, the “Denver Post Season to Share distributed a record $3,341,500 to 74 local nonprofit organizations.”  The list included the amount each organization received as well as 1-2 sentences about the primary focus of the nonprofit.  I really liked that they did not just list the names of the organization.  Offering the brief summaries of each organization allows readers to learn about organizations they might not be familiar with – perhaps helping generate additional community support in the future for each organization.  At the bottom of the list it said, “ Learn about Season to Share, find stories about and links to agencies applying for funding, and donate denverpost.com/seasontoshare.”

I appreciate the way the newspaper kicked off this campaign.  By giving it a very high profile in their Sunday edition of the newspaper, the Denver Post accomplished several things simultaneously.  First, they offered their customers a way to join forces with them to jointly make a larger difference and “made the ask” for their support.  Second, while asking for customer support, they are also educating the community at large about their efforts and support of nonprofits, thus strengthening their reputation and cementing reader loyalty. Third, because of how they constructed their special section, they also leveraged their unique business expertise to support the nonprofits they funded last year that could prove to be of even greater long-term value than just the actual dollar amounts awarded — they helped increase the visibility and awareness of the mission/programming of each the 74 nonprofits they selected to fund in the community among their readership – hopefully synergizing a snowball effect of future support of each of the organizations from individuals and other businesses.

Nicely done!

Every month or so, I get a value pack of advertising postcards in the mail from local businesses. In the last batch, there was the card from Stanley Steemer you see here offering a special on cleaning and committing 5% of the net proceeds as a donation to the Denver Affiliate of Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure using code Pink54149.

The back of the card also indicates that if the special cleaning was not of interest, they would also donate 5% of the proceeds from any other of their cleaning services when providing the coupon code of PinkRSVP.

So, a nice win-win promotion by Stanley Steemer with the tie in to the massive business support during October’s focus on breast cancer.  Customers may be moved to action to hire them to do fall cleaning and Susan G. Komen benefits by getting additional dollars, as well.  Customers get to feel good that something they would have done anyway is helping make a difference.

Another time though…Stanley Steemer needs to do a better job proofreading – the name of the organization is spelled K-O-M-E-N  not K-O-M-A-N.  Also, when I went to Stanley Steemer’s website, I could find no mention of this promotion which I think is a missed opportunity for the company.  The Denver Susan G. Komen site does mention Stanley Steemer International as one of their Silver Sponsors, however.  So good job there!

So make sure your company connects all the dots on your cause marketing promotions, OK?!!

On the Susan G. Komen Denver Race for the Cure site today I noticed the following short announcement:

“Great New, Easy Way To Donate To The Komen Denver Race For The Cure®.

Text the word DENVER to 90999 to give $5 from your mobile! When prompted reply with YES to complete your one-time $5 gift.  A one-time $5 donation will appear on your next mobile bill as a separate line item, recognized as a tax deductible donation.  Receipts can be viewed and printed online.  No extra or hidden fees, but standard text message rates do apply.  A one-time donation of $5 will be added to your mobile phone bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Standard messaging rates and additional fees may apply. All charges are billed by and payable to your mobile service provider. Service is available on most carriers.  Donations are collected for the benefit of Komen Denver by the Mobile Giving Foundation and subject to the terms found at mGive.com/a. You can unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP to 90999.”

Makes it really easy to give…and they are not asking for a lot of money.  How can your compnay leverage donations for a cause you care about??

I signed up today to walk in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Denver this coming Sunday, October 4th. I have participated many times before and I am always amazed how many people are involved in Denver – more on one day than all the people in Bangor, Maine, the small city near where I grew up!

“The Denver Metropolitan Affiliate of Susan G Komen for the Cure was founded in 1994, the year after the first Komen Denver Race for the Cure, to carry out the promise of our National organization — to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures. The Affiliate continually strives to meet this promise through three core activities — education, fundraising and grant making.”

It is inspiring to see the level of support and all the pink ribbons displayed during October by so many businesses.  The growth has been amazing and really has raised the awareness and resources available to address breast cancer in ways that could never have happened otherwise.  What can you do?

There was an article in the Denver Post’s YourHub section on 9/24/2009 titled, “Annual fundraiser just takes some cents” that caught my eye.  The article by Amber Gerding (program coordinator at the Young Philanthropists Foundation) was about the Penny Harvest, a service learning program of the Young Philanthropists Foundation, a Denver-based nonprofit whose mission is to “give kids the power to change our world through philanthropy and volunteerism.”  The Penny Harvest program is “designed to teach kids about their value as contributers to society and after the “harvest,” students identify community issues, interview local community leaders and make big decisions of where to grant all of that money.”

From their website, I learned “In the 2008-2009 year, the students have officially harvested 3.8 million pennies, or $38,996.96, for local charities through the Young Philanthropists Foundation’s 2008-2009 Penny Harvest.” In its second year, the Penny Harvest was in 31 elementary and middle schools in Colorado and resulted in over 90 grants of both service hours and money.

From the website I learned, “The Penny Harvest was born more than 17 years ago out of one child’s desire to help the homeless. Since its inception it has grown to include more than 500,000 students in 900 schools in New York City, Albany, Seattle, Nashville, Florida and Colorado. In the past 17 years, Penny Harvest students have given away more than $6 Million to nonprofits and contributed more than half a million service hours to their local communities.”

What a cool and worthwhile program to show the next generation of citizens how to make a difference.  I am going to give them a call to see how my company can support their efforts.  If there is no existing program like this in your community, how can your business help develop one?  Clearly this is a best practice ripe for replication!

Check them out at: http://www.pennyharvest.org or call at 720-221-9218.

I got an email today from Josh Clauss at tuggl.com about the contest they are running for nonprofits that I wanted to share with you. Tomorrow (Tuesday 9/1/2009), beginning at 8:00am, tuggl is launching a one-day recognitions contest on tuggl.com for Denver/Boulder nonprofits. The short details are that the nonprofit that recognizes the most local business supporters on tuggl between 8:00 am and midnight tomorrow will be the recipient of a possible $500 donation and a lot of publicity for their organization.

The longer explanation is this: tuggl.com is finally launching to the public, and as part of that launch, they’re donating a dollar to a good cause in the community for every local business review completed between Wednesday, 9/2 and Friday, 9/4, up to $250. Tuggl’s friends over a Hot Press Web have agreed to match this donation, dollar-for-dollar, bringing the total projected contribution to $500. There is an additional drawing to win a $100 gift certificate to Noel Cunningham’s award-winning Strings Restaurant for the consumers doing the business reviews. Tomorrow’s nonprofit contest is to decide the organization that is the beneficiary of the donations generated from the consumer promotion as well as all the publicity that all of the businesses and consumers involved in the contest can muster – which is to say, a lot.”

Who do you know in the Denver/Boulder nonprofit community?  Can you can help spread the word?  It would be great if you could send this message out to your nonprofit network letting them know that this contest is on (which, again, does not start until tomorrow at 8 am, but ends at midnight), and letting them know that they can find out more about tuggl at: http://www.tuggl.com/about/nonprofit.

Tuggl is a web-based initiative helping individuals and local nonprofits to identify good businesses so that they receive the recognition they deserve and are able to grow. In this way, tuggl proves to local businesses that doing good is good for business.

Sitting here still minding my own business at Peaberry Coffee working on my book and I see this group of young hotties setting up a table outside…what is going on?  Then I remember the sign I saw on the back of the ladies’ bathroom door…that from 9 am -12 pm today, Colorado Firefighters would be outside Peaberry Coffee on 2nd in Denver’s Cherry Creek to sign their 2009 calendar to raise money for the Children’s Hospital through the nonprofit Fired Up for Kids.

Fired Up for Kids’ website says, “The Colorado Firefighter Calendar is produced and created by Fired Up For Kids, a non-profit organization. Fired Up For Kids donates all proceeds received from special events and sales of the Colorado Firefighter Calendar to The Children’s Hospital Burn Center, who is committed to providing the highest standard of burn care to neonates, infants, children, and adolescents up to 21 years of age in the Rocky Mountain region. To date, Fired Up For Kids has raised more than $250,000. For more information about The Children’s Hospital Burn Center, visit www.thechildrenshospital.org.” 

Peaberry Coffee is one of the official sponsors of this calendar project. Peaberry has a long term partnership with the Children’s Hospital and so supporting the calendar event and Fired Up for Kids was a logical extension of their existing commitment.  The two organizations are closely aligned and Peaberry has a coffee kiosk at the hospital itself.  Every year Peaberry does a special label coffee promotion (beans or ground) to benefit the hospital donating $1 per pound of coffee sold.  Peaberry staff are proud of the company’s support of Children’s Hospital.  Today the manager is giving the firefighters sitting outside signing calendars free coffee on her, saying,”It is just good business”, when I asked about it.  She also told me that every day of the year, Peaberry offers any uniformed person (fire, police, military) free coffee or the same discount on specialty drinks they give their employees. 

So, as I sit here thinking about this and watching people going through the line to get their calendar signed by the hunks, I am feeling a little shy about getting one and then I have a brainstorm!  My women’s book group does an annual holiday gift exchange – this is THE perfect gift!  Now I can make my contribution and not feel like a desperate middle age woman.  Cool…or should I say Hot!

The big news hit yesterday…IKEA is coming to Denver (well, actually Centennial)…FINALLY!  I can smell the Swedish meatballs and lignonberry sauce already.  As you can tell, I am huge IKEA fan – have been since 1990 when I lived in Crystal City, VA for a couple years working for the U.S. Agency for International Development and had my first experience with the IKEA at Potomac Mills.  Having lived in Finland as an AFS exchange student for a year and then 10 years later for another year as Fulbright Scholar at the University of Helsinki…IKEA (although a Swedish company) it is as close as I can get to the Finnish experience here in the U.S. most of the time.

Several years ago at the Business for Social Responsibility annual conference, I ended up sitting with the head of community relations for IKEA for a meal – by accident.  Thought I’d died and gone to heaven as I am such a loyal fan – kept trying to figure out how to offer my services for product instead of my usual fees…  Anyway, at that time they were in discussion about developing a partnership with Save the Children, a group I was also working with to develop systems to evaluate the impact of their domestic youth programs so we had a very interesting discussion. 

Later, in 2006, I learned that one of IKEA’s key partners was UNICEF and I wrote a post about that partnership as I thought it was very fun that they had an endless loop video detailing the partnership for customers playing on the TV in one of their living room displays in the Bloomington, MN store. 

Check it out!

Living in Denver has some perks…and it’s not just the view of the mountains!  Starbucks decided to pilot its new Gold card program here starting last month.  Since I live in Denver and use their refillable gift cards (it’s much easier to carry on a dog walk than cash!), I was invited via email to join last month.  On the website www.starbucks.com/gold it says, “If you enjoy espresso beverages, you’re in fine company. On average, Starbucks lovers in Denver drink more espresso beverages than the rest of the country, especially Caffe Lattes flavored with vanilla syrup or customized with soy milk.”  Who knew…
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There was an article from Joan Hill, Communications Manager for Denver’s Warren Village, in Thursday June 19, 2008’s The Hub Section of the Denver Post about a recent philanthropy activity of Qwest, the telephone company.  Warren Village helps motivated low-income, single parents move from public assistance to self-sufficiency through subsidized housing, on-site childcare, counseling, and education or job training.

For the second year in a row, Qwest Women and employees provided every child at Warren Village a brand new pair of shoes.  “Seeing the joy on their faces was priceless,” according to Bridgette O’Toole who managed the shoe donation project for the company.  The article also mentioned that members of the women’s organization “asked everyone they knew to buy a pair of shoes to donate” which to me means they leveraged their personal networks not only to increase the amount they were able to contribute but, at the same time, they let others know about their community involvement, helping to improve the company’s image.  There were quotes from both Bridgette and Naomi Taggart, resources director for Warren Village in the article.
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