A blog about marketing, causes and a variety of topics in the “goodsphere”

Category Archives: Causes

Leveraging scale with the enlightened billionaires + A new Corp. America pledge soon?

Posted on August 15, 2010 in Causes, Generation G

Scale is the stuff of business textbooks and industrial age business models.

It is also a scary word for just about anyone trying to start up an internal or external new venture (but will it scale Ryan?)

The strategy of “leveraging scale” led to 19th & 20th century riches. By smartly  understanding how to leverage scale, some companies have grown unfathomably large and sometimes even “too big to fail.“

Guys like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have also grown rich beyond anyone’s imagination by understanding the power of scale.  So, it is exciting to learn that Buffet and Gates have joined forces to build “philanthropy scale” via the giving pledge, an initiative aimed at getting billionaires to pledge at least half of their net worth to charitable donations.

So far, Gates & Buffet have been pretty successful (40 enlightened billionaires are now signed up). I found a great digital graphic (a must look) on the amount of good this money could do if all the cash was focused on an individual cause.

Crushing the others by themselves

The giving pledge is even more impressive when you consider that “Fab 40″ giving alone crushes the 2009 giving of the entire Fortune 100 (probably even the entire Fortune 500).

Imagine if a couple of giant, enlightened companies led the way with their own form of the Giving Pledge.  Even a meager 1% to 2% of revenue donated by all Fortune 500 companies (per year) would step change the world…vastly increasing the amount of good in the universe.

Some enlightened companies (like Patagonia) have been doing this for a while already.  And hey, people in the US give about 2% (on average) of their income to causes per year.  Aren’t corporations people too?)

So who will stand up and lead the corporate America effort here?  Anyone?  Google?

I predict that a smart, BIG company will pick up on the giving pledge zeitgeist and lead the way–earning loads of goodwill and building massive 21st century brand equity.

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Ku Klux Klan, “Brand Doctor” and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl Crusader

Posted on June 6, 2010 in Books Influencing me, Causes, Leadership, Marketing, Purpose

Doctors are generally some of the most trusted people in America (#3 most trusted profession in a recent poll). They also tend to be some of the wealthiest Americans.

For the most part, we love our doctors. “Brand Doctor” works today. If a guy with a white coat & white teeth sells a product on TV, we’ll believe every word he says.

So it’s curious that “we the people” did not forcefully call on doctors & the powerful medical establishment to propose a viable solution for our 50 million uninsured people in the US over the past few years. Where were all the doctors in the debate over the uninsured? Surely they cared most about all the people left behind by our broken “big healthcare” system?

In the go-go 1920s, roughly 100 years before the latest round of healthcare debates, Dr. Michael Shadid cared.

Shadid was an industrious “foreign born” doctor who battled the Klan, racism and the medical establishment to help poor farmers gain access to quality health care in Dust Bowl Oklahoma. Dr. Shadid was a purpose driven doctor who bucked the system and dared to propose an alternative, cooperative business model in the face of traditional thinking.

Dr. Shadid’s book entitled Crusading Doctor highlights his struggle to start the first cooperative hospital in the US. It also shows just how hard the entrenched establishment will fight to keep the status quo. While reading the book, you’ll like be surprised to discover how ruthlessly and violently Shadid’s fellow doctors openly opposed and slandered him. Many of Shadid’s opponents focused on “what’s good for business” instead of “what’s good for poor, under served people.”

Crusading Doctor & Crusading Marketer
After observing the small community of Carter, Oklahoma build a thriving farming cooperative movement (cotton gins, grocery stores, etc) Dr. Shadid founded America’s first cooperative hospital in Elk City, Oklahoma (where I went to high school).

In 1929, Dr. Shadid’s alternative business plan looked something like this…he would organize 6,000 families who would buy a $50 share of stock with which to build and equip the hospital. Then, the community would pick a board of directors and each family would pay $25 per year (pre-payment plan) for their medical and surgical care.

Dr. Shadid set himself incredibly high targets in the beginning (6,000 members). So, he actually had to start the hospital on a discount system. By 1932, Shadid was able to apply the pre-payment plan. Getting to critical mass wasn’t easy, however. Dr. Shadid quickly became famous for using guerilla marketing tactics, word of mouth & CRM in order to gain enough members. He tirelessly promoted his cause, traveling across the country & lecturing on the benefits of preventative medicine and the cooperative model (a hospital owned by the patients).

Lessons from Dr. Shadid
1. Study Sociology, not just Technology: Dr. Shadid was a lifelong learner who kept up with new treatments and new technologies…but, he also kept up on the sociology and ethics of his profession. He was continuously interested in how his profession impacted people and society. This led him to better understand plight of people vs focusing on his own bottom line.
2. Purpose provides fuel in the face of extreme adversity: Dr. Shadid was very clear about his purpose; he wanted to provide quality health care at affordable rates for hard working, low-income farmers. Dr Shadid was slandered repeatedly as organized medical societies and their powerful allies tried to put him and the patient owned, cooperative hospital out of business year after year. He never wavered in the face of adversity, however, and he always put people and purpose out front.
3. Don’t Forget: Dr. Shadid continually remembered what it was like to live with hunger, poverty & lack of heatlh care, while growing up in an impoverished part of Syria. He remembered what it was like to lose patients in good, hard-working farm families. He didn’t forget these experiences & they fueled his desire to drive change.

What has happened to Dr. Shadid’s model?

As the NYT details in this article: It has survived. Shadid built a team of doctors who collaborated closely and were not paid based on how many procedures they performed. Today, this description fits the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic as well as less-known groups around the country.

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Hello Rewind

Posted on March 8, 2010 in Causes, Purpose Products, Social Entreprenuers

If you get the chance, check out Hello Rewind.   This young group takes old T-shirts and turns them into cool laptop sleeves.

After my house was recently broken into, I had an incentive to throw all the rest of my old stuff out (what was left of it anyway).  In the process, I realized that I had a lot of old T-shirts that had sentimental value…but were on their “last legs.”  So, why not turn them into something like a laptop bag?

Fast Forward a couple of years

I really like the T-Shirt Art recycling idea.  Admittedly, I already have a functional laptop cover, but I could think of loads of ideas for old T-shirt products.  I’m hoping that Hello Rewind gets some traction & then moves beyond Laptop bags.

And a good cause embedded as well…

Hello Rewind is working to employ victims of sex crimes in the production of the laptop bags.  The team works with women formerly sex trafficked in New York City so they can learn new skills and support themselves.

By purchasing a Hello Rewind laptop sleeve, you help sustain their mission.  So, if you are in the market for a laptop bag, check these guys out!

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A week that simply blew me away

Posted on January 25, 2010 in Causes, Social Entreprenuers, social media
Martin Luther King, Jr.Martin Luther King, Jr. via last.fm

Like many of you, I was horrified, inspired and amazed at different times throughout this tragic week.

Horrified:  Watching the horrific tales of desperately trapped people unfold during the Haitian earthquake was gut wrenching.

We’ve all seen tragic events unfold on TV over the years & we’re used to seeing graphic coverage.  But what was it about this specific disaster that gnawed at me so hard?

Was it watching the poorest country in the W. Hemisphere get hammered by a disaster (again) & then being reminded that the country has more or less been exploited/abused since it was founded?

I don’t know…

Amazed: Watching how new technology galvanized the aid effort was amazing.  Mobile donation campaigns, Twitter updates, Video uploads, remote people identification methodologies via crowdsourcing…wow.

The Extraordinaries, a crowdsourcing social venture, worked around the clock after the quake hit to adapt their tools to enable people to help identify missing persons.  2,000 volunteers have been sorting through thousands of photos taken by journalists, relief workers, missionaries & anyone else documenting the crisis on the ground.

Check out the site at http://haiti.beextra.org…what an empowering tool!  Today, we can even donate our time to help people in a remote crisis (not just reach for our wallets).

Inspired: Watching so many good people go down to Haiti to help was inspirational.

Speaking of inspiration…it was also Martin Luther King day this week.  So, as I was going through a couple of his speeches online, I came across a great post from Change.org about King’s 1967 speech to the SCLC.  I liked it so much that I’ve copied it below for you (with a couple of modifications for brevity) to help reflect on Haiti & where we go from here.

By 1967, the triumph of the 1964 Civil Rights Act had had time to sink in, and the challenge of addressing poverty and injustice during a rapidly escalating war was leading to increasingly radical activism. The 1967 SCLC address was King’s chance to boldly affirm his positions on economic justice, nonviolence and power.

“Audacious Faith In The Future:” King begins his speech with an affirmation that true freedom can only begin on the inside, and that as long as people – in the case of this speech, the African-American population – remain slaves to the limits of their own self-conception, they can never be truly free. He wrote:

No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation or Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill can totally bring this kind of freedom….the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, “I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that. I’m ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave.”

This is the part of the speech that I believe brings up the most important questions we must ask ourselves as we ask about the state of our moral universe and where we go from here.

What does a child believe he or she can be?

What about n Iraq? In Haiti? On the south side of Chicago?

They are owed, at the very minimum, the plausibility of their own triumph.

My great fear today is that we are beginning to lose faith in the future. This economic crisis has destroyed ten years of economic progress in America, we’re told. A generation of Americans is expected to have a shorter lifespan than its predecessor, largely because of our addiction to cheap food and our broken health care system. And in most parts of the world, the story is worse.

If we let this be the story of our time, we will cede the optimism that even in our darkest hours has aimed our compass towards progress. This is why I spend so much time telling a different story – of an entrepreneurial spirit that believes and acts as though all people have agency; of a global generation that is coming into its own as a force for good in the world; of the people who are quietly building the infrastructure for a more just tomorrow.

Because what King knew was that, in the long run, the contradictions of this nation and indeed – of human nature – could not stand in the way of the boldness of our experiment in liberty, equality and creativity. He believed that when you give people the foundations to be successful, they usually are, and that when you give people the chance to be good – to themselves and to others – they usually will be.

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Inspired to Change History: A Motivational Guest Post from Shawn Seipler of Clean the World

Posted on November 17, 2009 in Causes, Inspiration

Clean the World co-founder Shawn Seipler has provided m-cause with a very motivational guest post today.   In the post, Shawn talks about his burning desire to change his life and help others.  Shawn will get you fired up to go out there and make some change this holiday season–and beyond! So enjoy the guest post…big thanks to Shawn!

Have you ever gotten up in the morning and felt absolutely convinced that you could change history? I mean, you can see change right in front of you- an opportunity to alter something in the current state of our world that would change history. Well, I am at that point in my life and I dare to say that many of you are either there, or could be there and you may just not know it.

I’m Shawn Seipler, Executive Director of Clean the World. It was only a year ago that I sat in another hotel room for around the one hundredth time, leaving my beautiful wife and four children again, longing for something different. I needed to figure something else out…my own business maybe? I wanted to be more in control of my work schedule and I didn’t want to leave my family anymore, or at least I wanted to do it on my terms.

Looking around the room, I began to think, am I changing history? No way, I’m just trying to figure out something different…

Because I typically traveled to multiple cities in any given week, I only took carry on luggage which means my bags were always heavy and extremely packed to brim. Every time I left a hotel room after 1 or 2 nights, I left the little soaps and shampoos behind as I had no room in my bags for them and, frankly, I didn’t really need them. So now I began thinking about this habit specifically. How many other travelers like me do not take their soap and bottled amenities with them upon checkout? And, what do the hotels do with these used items? Certainly they do not give them to other guest or return them. A quick call to the front desk and I got my answer- these items are thrown away. Hmmmm, now maybe I’m on to something, especially because one of the major topics of the day is green business, eco-friendliness and sustainability.

Weeks later I called my long time friend and business colleague Paul Till and began sharing my thoughts with him around hotel soap and shampoo. He was very intrigued about the notion of these items being thrown away, discarded into landfills. Can they be recycled? If they could be recycled, what could we do with them? Paul went to work, trying to find answers to these questions.

Then, the “Aha moments” began to come more frequently. Paul discovered that millions of children die each year from diseases that could be prevented with proper hygiene. Clinical studies show 40 – 65% reductions in these diseases by hand washing with bar soap alone. Some studies even claim that millions of lives can be saved with soap interventions.  Furthermore, soap is toxic to water systems and not very good for landfill space. And of course, we all know about plastic bottles…

Wait just a moment here, were we finally on to something? Were we finally in a place where we could change history?

Together, Paul and I founded Clean the World. Our non-profit charitable organization that collects the partially used soap and shampoo from hotel rooms, recycles these items, and then distributes them to domestic homeless shelters and impoverished people worldwide to save lives.

Here is a portion of a letter I recently wrote for Clean the World’s newsletter, giving you more details on our organization:

3.5 million children under the age of 5 will die this year to two deadly diseases- acute respiratory infection (pneumonia) and diarrheal disease. This means 9000 times today, across the world, a mother will bury her child that died yesterday or the day before. And tomorrow, another 9,000 funerals will take place. Over the next hour, 375 boys or girls will lose their baby brother or baby sister forever.

Even more tragic than these staggering facts is that these deaths could be prevented by up to 65% through simple hand washing with bar soap.  Today, in the United States alone, we will throw away between 1 – 1.5 million bars of soap. That’s only in the U.S. How much soap do you think will be discarded worldwide today?

9,000 children’s lives lost, half can be prevented with bar soap, and we will throw away ~1.5 million bars of soap in the U.S. alone.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am not overstating or dramatizing this very clear notion and vision of Clean the World: We can Change History in our Lifetime!

We can prevent tons of needless landfill waste daily, protect our precious water systems, and even change cultures across the globe in an incredibly short period of time. It is not only possible, but dare I say it is our calling. For us, the employees and volunteers of Clean the World, we believe this to be true: We have been called to change history! We have been called to save these lives! We have been called to remove acute respiratory illness and diarrheal disease, the #1 and #4 killers worldwide respectively, off the Top 10 Killer list now and forever!

Clean the World Hospitality Partners have joined the movement. Volunteers, individuals and organizations are helping every day. And today, I ask you to join in our cause: Please be a part of Changing History in Our Lifetime!

So now, I’m asking you this. Was I changing history the moment I began to think about doing something else? Was I changing history when I called the front lobby to see if how soap was being thrown away after each visit? Was Paul changing history when he researched deadly diseases that could be prevented through proper hygiene? Absolutely! All of these little moments led us to our history changing venture and I can tell you this: similar instances and opportunities present themselves to you every day. Moments to ask a question or moments to find a solution. Moments to make a small difference that may change history for a single person or an entire planet. If you could change history for one individual, would you?

As we approach the holidays, you know there are many ways that you can help. You can volunteer time at a food bank or donate money to a charity…all important activities in this great time of need. Just encouraging a child, or simply speaking to someone who needs you to listen can help. Do you have an idea? Pursue it! Do you have a dream? Go after it! You just simply never know.

So I conclude by asking you to do something simple, yet so incredibly profound: change history in your lifetime!

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MyVetwork: Help spread the word on Veterans Day

Posted on November 11, 2009 in Causes

In the USA, Nov 11th is Veterans Day. This year, in a show of support for Veterans and active duty servicemen/women, P&G is sponsoring Digital Veterans Day (DVD).  On Wednesday, digital leaders from P&G, Google, Microsoft, Facebook & Yahoo will descend on Cincinnati to support the non-profit social networking site MyVetwork. The goal of the night will be to leverage social networks, buzz & targeted online ad buys to deliver 100,000 new registrants on the non-profit site.

Below are some of the benefits of MyVetwork…

Connect To a New Career
Despite Veterans’ proven skills and capabilities, the unemployment rate is higher for Veterans than for their civilian peers.  MyVetwork is a great place to find out about jobs & network.

As a Vet myself, I know that the transition to civilian life after military service can be especially difficult during tough economic times. Companies can readily find experienced talent and don’t need to take “risks” on service men/women just getting out of the service.

Connect to Resources

There is a ton of info out there on the web for the military.  MyVetwork seeks to provide context, not just content – especially in the areas of health, education, careers and financial services. MyVetwork’s leverages proprietary algorithms and community-created resources, forums and groups, tips, etc., that can be quickly shared for the benefit of all.

Connect the Whole Family
It’s not just the soldier who goes to war - it is the whole family. Being a spouse or family member left to cope at home presents its own sets of challenges. On MyVetwork there are individuals and groups who can help.

Connect to a Community that Works
Unlike other social networking sites, MyVetwork is the only community built by those who have served, for those who have served, and for the people who love them. People don’t join MyVetwork to make friends per se, but rather to make connections: to information, resources, jobs, advice, and to a community that is dedicated to helping its members succeed in life.

So, if you know a veteran or anyone currently in the military and want to support MyVetwork, you can easily be a “virtual” part of the DVD event by just adding a “shout out” to your Facebook profile /Twitter, etc. encouraging people to sign up with the site today, Nov 11th.

Thanks for your help…in light of the startling recent spike in violence in Afghanistan & the tragic Ft. Hood incident; it is a good time for all of us to join together in support of the men & women out there in the field.

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Action driving personal change–Clean the World co-founder Shawn Seipler

Posted on October 28, 2009 in Causes, Inspiration

As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being not to have lived. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Shawn Seipler has an inspirational story.

A couple of years ago, Shawn was looking for new business opportunities in the “red-hot” green business sector.   Little did he know that he would find himself on the CBS evening news (click here to watch), presenting his non-profit success story Clean the World just after incubating the idea.

Not only did Shawn experience quick success with a fantastic non-profit, but as he began to see change in people’s lives, he also developed a much deeper green conscious.

As I spoke with Shawn last week, he told me how starting Clean the World had changed his outlook on life.  Before Clean the World, Shawn had a great job as a VP at Channel Intelligence where (like many of us) he did not put much thought into the Green movement or his carbon footprint.  In a burst of entrepreneurial spirit born of long evenings in hotels, Shawn decided to leave the company to set-up Clean the World, a non-profit that recycles slightly used soap items from hotels and then distributes them to the needy in the US and other countries–like Haiti.

Shawn used action to ignite his passion for “green”.  Action so often drives passion…instead of sitting back and yearning to be greener, thinner, smarter, better, sometimes we should take Shawn’s example and just move when we have a good idea that makes economic sense and helps people.

Recycling partially used soap and then distributing it to the needy is a great idea.  We all go to hotels for business/pleasure and we use the packaged soap probably only a couple of times while in the room.  The unused bar normally gets thrown into the bin by the cleaning staff, eventually winding up in landfills.  When you consider that there are 4.6 million hotel rooms in the US, you can imagine just how much unused soap gets tossed each day.  And, when you consider the amount of people (3.5 million) that still die every year from simple diseases like diarrhea because they don’t have the cash to buy soap…you can see how Shawn’s effort is sorely needed.

Seeing lives directly impacted by his work has motivated Shawn and his team to push across the country and sign up every hotel possible to the program.  So, the next time you stay in a hotel, ask them if they are using Clean the World–put a little pressure on the staff.  And, stop by the website to drop a donation if you can.  Finally, check out Shawn’s blog for the latest Clean the World updates.

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What Technology Choices Say About Your Cause

Posted on September 2, 2009 in Causes

I’m excited to have a very useful guest post today from Kenneth J. Weiss, Director of e-Commerce at Hoover and author of a new book called Slightware - The Next Great Threat to Brands.  You can download the first chapter for free at Slightware.com.

Back in the dark ages when I was in design school, students were given the challenge of developing pieces of communication that had powerful primary and secondary messages. The primary message was the overt or obvious message that was communicated, and the secondary message was the underlying meaning created by the actual execution.

The classic example is a dusty road sign that says “Fresh Eggs” in hand-scribbled letters. The primary message is “fresh eggs.” The execution of the sign, simple and homemade, supports the secondary message of goods being sold directly from a farm. If the exact same sign were changed to say “Sky Diving Lessons” the lack of professional execution delivers a secondary message that immediately raises concerns about credibility and safety.

Today almost every brand and cause is relying on digital communications to help advance the message. Reviewing the primary message is easy - what secondary messages are being delivered by your technology choices?

The growth of digital publishing and delivery tools has allowed organizations to cut out the “middle man” of advertising agencies, public relations firms and other companies. The messages are perceived as being more authentic since they are coming directly from the source. Bad technology is risky because the brand or cause takes a direct hit. Be careful! Consumers are more discriminating than ever before.

Choosing the Right Technology and Building Better User Experiences

Selecting the right words, carefully constructing messages and staying on point is tricky but can be done. Technology is a bit more problematic because many case leaders have limited track records with technical decisions. Here are some areas where technology can help or hurt your cause.

Hosting - Did you know a massive push toward green hosting is underway? Companies that host web sites are looking at the construction of their buildings, the way their power is generated and the efficiency of the web servers to provide a more environmentally conscious web hosting solution. For some causes, green hosting is a must.

Vendor Selection - If your web development company or IT firm uses off-shore labor for code development make sure they select countries with reasonable labor practices. Once an offending company is exposed, their list of clients is usually made public as well.

Editorial Policy and Processes for Social Media - Social media is all the rage. How a brand or cause reacts says volumes about credibility and transparency. The issues are many: Will you let employees Twitter? Will you offer comments or ratings on your own site? Will you respond to comments made on other sites? Will you allow employees to share work related information or pictures on their own Facebook pages. Will you develop a Facebook page for your cause? Will you publish stories or pictures on your site submitted by readers - if not how do you turn them down gracefully?

Bulletproof Attribution - Any article, chart, image or phrase used on your site that can be credited to a third party must be explicitly notated. How can a cause be trusted if copyright rules are not followed?

Stock Photography - Using stock photography is easy. It is affordable and it can be found on dozens of sites around the web. This is what makes it dangerous. You may use a stock photograph to create a feel or tonality. A reader, however, might take it as an editorial statement. For instance you might use a shot of smiling children when talking about a community outreach service to illustrate the benefit. A viewer of the page might interpret the picture as “we helped THESE children.” Imagine their deflated feeling when they see those kids smiling on ten other web sites.

E-Commerce Partnerships - If you sell any products or materials through partner sites, you need to understand the end-to-end flow of the order. Is the credit card information safe? How are orders packed and shipped? Will email addresses be used for further marketing? In some instances the e-commerce experience feels seamless with the original site. Any negative customer experience will reflect poorly on you.

Security of Your Back-End Systems - Wouldn’t a person opposed to your cause love to have a peek at your mailing list or donor list? Or worse yet, wouldn’t they love to send an email pretending to be you? Quick! Right now - can you say your data is safe? Where is the back up? Who has access to it?

Required Fields on Forms - In this age if identify theft and rampant marketing customers are very cautious about sharing information. Any online form - email sign ups, information requests, simple contact forms - must balance completeness of information with the user’s protective instincts. The number of fields that you can mark “required” drops each day.

Print Strategy - Are all of your documents, forms, guides and manuals available as PDF’s? Do you tag each email with a note that says consider the environment before printing? When used correctly digital technologies can greatly reduce paper consumption.

Now is the Time To Get Started

Now more than ever, the web is the go-to source for research and information, and digital communication is a cost effective way to keep people informed. Consumers are becoming socially conscious about the right ways and wrong ways for a company to use digital technologies - and the bar is getting higher every day.

Thanks again to Ken for this excellent post.  Please take the time to check out his new book over at Slightware.com.  And please leave a couple of comments if you have a moment.

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P&G`s Euro Digital night: Purposeful learning

Posted on May 17, 2009 in Causes

This week, some of you may have received personal appeals from P&G employees for a small donation in support of the fight to eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (if you want to know a bit more about the cause, see this post).  Most of the online appeals were made to friends, family, and online influencers.  Our P&G team here in Geneva wanted to experiment with a program that had the dual objective of i) raising funds for a great cause and ii) learning about how social online tools can work together to quickly get the word out.

How it worked:  Several leaders within P&G (and external partners) were invited to help support the fundraising/learning initiative.  P&G set up websites for the different 4 teams using Justgiving`s outstanding fundraising service (more on this in a moment).  For example, my “feel n learn” team created a Facebook fan page, developed online videos, sent SMS and emails to personal contacts and attempted to do some blogger/Twitterati outreach.  All of our communication activity was directed back to our fundraising page at www.justgiving.com/pampersfeelnlearn.  The campaign was restricted to only a few days of activity (originally we only wanted to run the program for 1 evening).

Learning with Purpose: Those who attended the after work and were not as familiar with the rapidly evolving digital space took away some key learnings and, at the same time, supported a great cause…this was a good win/win from my perspective.

justgiving:  An impressive service:  There were several learning points for me during this unique event; I may provide more insight in later posts if there is interest.  I do however, want to briefly give a shout out to the team at justgiving.  If you need a way to quickly raise money for your cause online, justgiving does the heavy lifting and tracks everything.  After 10 years in operation, justgiving has helped over 6,000 member charities raise £370 million, mostly through their easy to use online fundraising landing pages.  They also have a nicely integrated Facebook widget and other tools to help anyone (and I mean anyone) quickly raise money for just about anything.  If you are not familiar with them, check out their website & blog to see what they have on offer.

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Participate, Vaccinate, Eliminate: Flash Mob for Pampers and UNICEF

Posted on May 12, 2009 in Causes

Many of you in the cause related marketing space are familiar with the outstanding Pampers and UNICEF partnership to help eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) by 2012 in some of the world’s poorest regions.  This evening, I’ll be participating in an effort to help drive this strong cause a bit further.

So, if you happen to stumble on to this blog before Sunday, May 17th and you are able to donate some cash (any amount would be great) that would be fantastic.  Please click here to send over a quick donation via justgiving. If you can tell a friend about this opportunity, that would be great too.   Note: If you are a reader of this blog, you’ll know that I work for P&G.  However, even if I didn’t work for P&G, I would be happy to support this worthy effort.

If you are not familiar with the Pampers and UNICEF campaign, let me give you a little background. Back in 2006, the 1 Pack = 1 Vaccine campaign program was launched in the U.K.  The program then spread to other countries in Western Europe (2007) and raised 50 million vaccines for UNICEF.  In 2008, the program spread to the U.S., Canada, Central, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  The 2008 (and beyond) campaign is part of a global, multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment to UNICEF that is supported by Pampers moms & dads.

A few months ago, Paul Jones, over at the venerable CAUSE MARKETING blog, wrote a nice post about the 1 Pack = 1 Vaccine campaign, so have a look at this post for more details on what Pampers is doing.

Thanks for your help.

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