Alliances Between Charities and Corporations Are Popular With Americans

Seventy percent of Americans are more likely to give money to a charity after hearing that it is working with a company to raise money and awareness, according to a new survey.

Released by Cone, a Boston firm that helps companies and nonprofit groups form marketing deals, the survey also found other benefits for charities that have formed marketing alliances with companies that sponsor their events, donate a percentage of sales, and undertake other activities to support a cause.

A majority of respondents, 76 percent, said that learning about a company-charity partnership increases both the positive image they have of the charity and the likelihood that they will tell a friend about the organization, while 79 percent said they’d be more likely to buy a product to support that charity.

Based on interviews with 1,033 adults, the new findings are part of a larger Cone study about how corporate-charity marketing deals affect consumers’ purchases and attitudes about companies (The Chronicle, January 20). That survey found that more than 70 percent of Americans think companies have an obligation to help charities. The newly released data mark the first time that the researchers have tried to determine how marketing deals affect charities.

Most respondents said it is appropriate for companies involved in such deals to use several resources to support a nonprofit organization’s cause, including encouraging employees to volunteer (75 percent), making donations of cash and products (67 percent), providing marketing and advertising to support the charity’s mission (67 percent), including information about the charity on their products (66 percent), and donating a percentage of product sales to the cause (58 percent).

“A lot of nonprofits are very hesitant and cynical about the impact that a corporate partnership could have on their image,” said Alison DaSilva, Cone’s vice president. “But Americans agree that charities need to do more than passively accept grants, and that it makes good sense to harness the resources of a company beyond just the philanthropic dollar.”

Top Causes

The top three causes that Americans felt were important for companies to support through marketing deals were education (81 percent), health (81 percent), and the environment (80 percent), followed by poverty (65 percent), crime and terrorism (65 percent), youth issues (59 percent), and housing and community development (56 percent).

When asked to be specific about priorities in those categories, 80 percent of people said that the most important thing companies working in education could do is help groups that focus on training workers in new skills, followed by literacy (74 percent), scholarships (73 percent), math and science training (72 percent), computer literacy (68 percent), and recruiting and retaining teachers (60 percent).

A free summary of the full “2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study” will be available next month from the company. For more information, contact Mindy Gomes Casseres at (617) 939-8371; mgomescasseres@coneinc.com.