Interesting conversation with a PR guest speaker in my Entrepreneurial Marketing at the University of Washington class recently about whether or not young companies should give to charities. The origin of the discussion was a 2011 Inc. Magazine story on The New Rules of Getting Press for Your Startup. One rule was: Be Charitable, quoting Ryan Carlin of Roaming Hunger saying that good press also results from good deeds. “Attaching yourself to a benefit or charity is one of the easiest and most beneficial practices in PR,” he says. “Consumers love hearing about charitable organizations and their events, and journalists know this.”
While clearly not wanting to, our speaker had to disagree with Mr. Carlin’s advice. And I had to agree with her. Anyone who’s ever tried to get press coverage of a nonprofit’s events just because the nonprofit was having an event knows all too well that journalists don’t particularly care about yet another charity event. TV cares about great visuals and if you’re closing down city streets for a fundraising run then, yes, there’s a decent chance the run will make the news in one way or another. Few other charitable events are publicity slam-dunks. Have you never watched news coverage from some natural disaster where the reporter on camera mentions companies donating truckloads of water or blankets without mentioning the company’s name or showing the logo on the truck? Even though you’ll get plenty of advice that you can get media coverage of your charitable marketing efforts — such as this Forbes article on the 5 Characteristic of a Successful Cause Marketing Campaign — there’s no media exposure guarantee attached to donating product or even labor. If that’s your sole reason for making the donation, it’s a risky marketing investment.
I’m a huge fan of charitable giving and donate both time and money every year. But I believe that getting involved with a charity just because you hope to get press coverage for it is a crummy reason for supporting a charity. There are much better reasons for getting involved with charities, even as a very young company, and here they are:
It’s in your DNA
Some brands, famously TOMS Shoes, are built with charitable components. While not every business can design some type of charitable component in to its very business plan, many if not most have the type of brand values that align really well with charitable giving, whether that come in the form of fundraising for charities, annual in-service events with employees or something bigger.
Your employees care
People generally like working for a company that does good in their community and the world. This is why matching gifts, employee in-service programs, company tee-shirts for groups getting together for fundraising walks and similar activities are as popular as they are. Supporting those activities are much easier for established businesses. Startups are typically very short on the key resources of money, time and people, yet there are ways to get involved at an early stage such rallying the whole team for a fundraising walk. If you have employees already, find out what causes matter to them and what charitable activities interest them.
Your customers care
What matters to your customers and aligns with your brand? The story is old, yet it’s excellent: When SleepCountry USA was a young company, Founder Sunny Kobe Cook partnered with a charity that reconditioned donated mattresses for battered women’s shelters. The program was elegant in many ways. Customers might be excited about having a brand new mattress, but getting rid of the old one was a pain. How happy would they be to have SleepCountry take that mattress off their hands? The trucks left full of mattresses and furniture and came back empty. Having them return with the customers’ old mattresses was an incremental cost that varied with fuel prices. But disposing of those mattresses — that could add up fast. Finding a partner to refurbish the mattresses donate them to shelters was good for her business financially. Being able to hand the customer a donation receipt AND take away their used mattress? What was the value of that?
Enormous! According to customer feedback cards, 30% of customers said they came to SleepCountry BECAUSE OF THE MATTRESS DONATION PROGRAM! That’s a hugely measurable result. The program mattered so much to the customers that for 30% of them it was the deciding factor on where to shop. Being involved in causes that matter to your customers can be excellent business. Do you know what causes or issues your customers care about?
Setting your own course
Even if your charitable programs have to wait for positive cash flow, think about and plan for them right out of the gate. Let your organization’s culture and brand personality drive the type of causes you would consider adopting and your future involvement. Then you’ll be ready when the first request comes in to put a donation jar next to the coffee machine or order logo tee-shirts for your team’s charity 5k. You’ll also be ready to capitalize on opportunities you never could have foreseen.
Seattle-based J&D’s Foods, makers of Bacon Salt, provide a terrific example of that. Operation Bacon Salt began with an email from a U.S. Marine serving in Iraq and missing his bacon. So Co-Founders Justin Esch and Dave Lefkow shipped the Marine a box of Bacon Salt. The happy soldier wrote back, including photos of his unit loving their Bacon Salt on just about everything they ate. J&D began sponsoring a unit a month and invited soldiers to email them to get on the list. Anyone ordering Bacon Salt directly from the company and shipping to a military address can get a 50% discount with the promo code baconsaltfortroups.
So you tell me: should entrepreneurs create charitable programs to get publicity?
