February 23, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Small charities often have a difficult time getting the attention of big companies like the Gap and CVS that run marketing campaigns to benefit charity.
Joe Waters, who oversees cause marketing at Boston Medical Center and writes Selfish Giving, offers ideas to help charities overcome that problem in his most recent post.
On his blog, Mr. Waters regularly highlights interesting charity-corporate marketing deals around the globe and offers tips and ideas to nonprofit fund raisers. In addition, he includes numerous links to articles about charity-corporate marketing deals that have appeared elsewhere online.
“Convincing a national chain to adopt your local nonprofit in multiple markets can be tough — though not impossible,” Mr. Waters writes.
He suggests how to overcome the problem, such as seeking partnerships with regional divisions of a national company and collaborating with other charities.
For example, he says a group of children’s hospitals banded together to persuade companies like Papa John’s and Dairy Queen to run marketing promotions. Working together, the hospitals in the Children’s Miracle Network have raised $2.7-billion from corporate marketing deals.
“We all like to think that we have the brand power to go it alone. But working together with other like-mind organizations just isn’t smart. It’s also lucrative.”
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