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June 2007 Archives
June 29, 2007
Dean Kamen on Doing Well While Doing Good
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks | Filed under: Inspiration
Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, recently gave the commencement address at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He started by reminding the graduates that the world had big problems that need to be solved, and they're not going to be solved by the two-thirds of the world's people who live on less than $2 per day and are more worried about finding water that won't kill them than they are about solving global warming or racial injustice or whatever cause you want to champion.
So I would beg every educated person in this world to remember, every day when you get up, that you are an incredibly small minority of all humanity. And with all the privileges I understand it gives us, I think it gives us an enormous responsibility to be leaders that do the right things for the right reasons. And remember that you can be doing good while you are doing well. You'll all go out and get good jobs. But you'll make your living by what you do in those jobs. You'll make your life by what you give. Have a good life.
'Doing good while you are doing well'--sounds like cause marketing.
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June 28, 2007
Spitting on the Common Good
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Philosophy
This morning I came across a centuries-old proverb that rings true louder than ever today.
"Loners who care only for themselves spit on the common good."
--Solomon, from the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament
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June 26, 2007
Know What Works
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks | Filed under: Research
Whenever the research comes in, it's kind of scary.
Like the fact that 60% of nonprofits don't evaluate the impact of their communications, according to a recent survey. That means you have no idea what works and what doesn't. You're shooting from the hip and your chances for success aren't so good.
But, as Tim Bednar puts it, this could be an opportunity: If over 60% of organizations don't track their marketing performance, you could pretty easily beat over 60% of organizations. How? By doing the research and seeing what works and what doesn't.
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June 22, 2007
Toast Raises Money for Charity
Posted by Shawn Stewart | Filed under: Cause Marketing
That's right toast--otherwise known as slightly scorched bread--is raising money for charity. Your Name On Toast, a side project thought up and developed by Atto, a little 3-person design studio in Ireland, has raised over $8,000 for a charity that is yet to be selected.
Here's how it works, you submit a donation of $80 or more (the current rate) and the folks at Your Name On Toast will create a piece of toast with your name--or company name or whatever you want--literally on a piece of toast. Your toast links to a url you give and the higher your donation, the higher the placement of your toast on the site. The higher your toast is on the page, the greater likelihood of it generating traffic to your site. It's reminiscent of the Million Dollar Homepage, but for charity and with a sliding placement and pricing scale. That and the toast.
They're still deciding who to give the money to, but you can help decide by voting.
Sounds like a nice built-in incentive to donate--it rewards you for a higher contribution and a well deserving charity makes a decent little chunk of change from it.
It's a really cool little viral cause marketing effort from some new friends on the Emerald Isle.
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June 20, 2007
Adobe Youth Voices
Posted by Shawn Stewart | Filed under: Cause Marketing
Adobe is giving young people in underserved communities the tools and platform to voice their opinions, contribute to solving the world's problems and find their purpose.
Adobe is partnering with five youth media organizations from around the world to provide millions in funding, creative software and volunteer support for training young people in underserved communities in the disciplines of print, web design and video. Their goal is to help these students become digitally literate and inspire them to jump in, not give up and let their voices make a difference.
Continue reading "Adobe Youth Voices"
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June 12, 2007
10 Rules for Corporate Social Responsibility
Posted by Shawn Stewart | Filed under: Cause Marketing
Here's a good little article if you were wondering what corporate responsibility is--or if you already know--how you could better do it.
The article was written by Leon Gettler a senior business journalist in Australia who writes about a wide range of management issues, including, corporate governance, ethics and all things Sarbanes-Oxley.
He boils effective corporate responsibility down to 10 rules. The first five cover what corporate responsibility actually is. The last five are how to do it well.
The last five rules have cause marketing written all over them, but will only really work when you pay attention to the first five.
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June 11, 2007
Strengths Phase II
Posted by Brad Abare | Filed under: Personality News
Last year, the Personality™ team went through Marcus Buckingham's book Now, Discover Your Strengths. This year, we're moving into the next phase of our strengths development with Buckingham's follow up book, Go Put Your Strengths to Work. We're taking the next six weeks during our Friday BBLs, and working our way through the book and the accompanying videos. My thanks to Josh for leading us in this journey.
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June 7, 2007
Facebook Causes Connects People & Nonprofits
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks | Filed under: Technology
Social networking just became socially conscious.
It started when the 24-million-strong Facebook (compared to MySpace's 57 million) launched a new developer's platform that allows third-party companies to create bits of software that plug into Facebook. The result is Flickr photos, Last.fm music playlists, top Digg news stories and so much more showing up in Facebook. But they don't just appear in Facebook like slapping a graphic into MySpace. They interact with Facebook, allowing users to customize their experience, displaying their most recently played tracks from Last.fm or viewing a sample of a friend's Flickr photos.
One of the new applications is called Causes (requires free registration, like everything on Facebook). It was created by Project Agape and allows users to start causes and rally their social network to support specific nonprofits. You can invite your friends to join and donate to the cause, and Facebook tracks your recruits and donations. At the time of writing Save Darfur had 62,978 members and donations totaling $5,196. And it was raised in two weeks (Facebook Causes launched on May 24). The One Campaign has raised $2,500 with 11,000+ members. Invisible Children has almost 22,000 members and has raised more than $700.
Continue reading "Facebook Causes Connects People & Nonprofits"
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June 6, 2007
Great Resource for Watching Trends
Posted by Shawn Stewart | Filed under: Research
If you haven’t signed up for trendwatching.com's free monthly briefing--trust us, go do it. I've been getting them for a while and they're stuffed with great insight and info.
This month is a great one. It touches on corporate responsibility from the environment to ethics, but with a very interesting perspective on the reemergence of all things local.
Here's a quote from the briefing:
"(STILL) MADE HERE encompasses new and enduring manufacturers and purveyors of the local. In a world that is seemingly ruled by globalization, mass production and 'cheapest of the cheapest,' a growing number of consumers are seeking out the local, and thereby the authentic, the storied, the eco-friendly and the obscure."
Like we said, great site.
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June 1, 2007
On The Move
Posted by Shawn Stewart | Filed under: Cause Marketing
Around here, we really like Bono. We're all members of the One Campaign, which exists to end what Bono calls, "brutal, stupid poverty". Some of us have been to Africa and seen with our own eyes what's happening there. So any chance we get to promote greater awareness about the issues that face the African continent, and what we can do to help, we do.
If you've never heard or read the speech that Bono delivered on this topic to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., last year you should take a sec and watch.
If you haven’t heard about On The Move, which is the book capturing this speech on paper, let us introduce you. It's a cause marketing effort. When you buy the book you support the retailers carrying the book, the One Campaign and the wonderful African people they are fighting for. If you want to see the book online before you pick one up, the One campaign has placed a digital sample online.
Or you could just buy it now by clicking on the cover.
Let's help make poverty history.
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