IEG’s Sponsorship Blogs

Time To Ban School Sponsorship

Posted: 6/15/2010 11:12:57 AM by Jim Andrews | with 6 comments

The Wall Street Journal ran a page one story yesterday on the rise in local school districts seeking private support from businesses and other organizations to offset budget cuts resulting from decreasing tax revenues.

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Filed under: cause marketing, guidelines, strategic philanthropy, trends, what is sponsorship, backlash

Report from CASE Conference: Strategic Philanthropy Insights

Posted: 6/8/2010 2:46:39 PM by Emily Rogers | with 0 comments

I had the pleasure of co-leading a session last Thursday at the Council for Advancement & Support of Education’s Annual Conference for Corporate & Foundation Relations Officers in San Francisco.

My co-leader for the session titled: “Strategic Philanthropy: A New Paradigm for How Corporations Partner with Higher Education” was Eric Thompson, director of corporate & foundation relations for Purdue University Calumet.

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Filed under: nonprofit, strategic philanthropy, trends, cause marketing

Where Sponsorship Analysts Disagree - The BP Crosstown Cup

Posted: 4/27/2010 12:41:30 PM by Jon Kander | with 0 comments

There are two sides to every argument. My colleague, Shelley Fasulko, lauded BP’s sponsorship of the Cubs-White Sox Crosstown Classic (now called the BP Crosstown Cup). Where Shelley saw a brilliant creation of new assets, I saw blatant corporate pandering and over-commercialization of a great event.

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Filed under: sports, strategic philanthropy, assets

Selling Sponsorship is Different from Fundraising! (And Why That is Total Bunk.)

Posted: 4/15/2010 4:59:28 PM by Diane Knoepke | with 0 comments

I had always thought of fundraising and selling sponsorship as dramatically different disciplines. Even when my title included the word “Development” at one point in my career, and even when I ran a small annual giving campaign for an association, I never considered myself a fundraiser. Instead, I “sold sponsorship and marketing relationships,” and I “marketed a [pin] campaign.” I never “asked;” I “sold.” It wasn’t a judgment on either profession; I just put myself in one bucket and stayed there. And I had a lot of company in seeing the nonprofit world as a bucketed, black-and-white place when it comes to corporate relationships.

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Filed under: associations, cause marketing, hospitals and healthcare, how to get sponsorship, museums/zoos/aquariums, nonprofit, selling, servicing, strategic philanthropy, arts

CSR And Sponsorships Should Be Source Of Innovation

Posted: 4/7/2010 2:16:16 PM by Lesa Ukman | with 0 comments

(This blog post originally appeared as an opinion column in IEG Sponsorship Report on March 2, 2010)

Corporate Social Responsibility used to be about managing a few sensitive areas that had the potential to generate positive or negative headlines. But, as companies recognize the direct link between social justice and increased shareholder value, they are abandoning this mandated model and instead embedding sustainability and ethical values into customer loyalty-building, cost reduction, new product creation, sourcing and HR.

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Filed under: international, nonprofit, retail, strategic philanthropy, trends, green

Boots on the Ground: Early Learnings from Timberland’s Help for Haiti

Posted: 1/20/2010 4:28:09 PM by Diane Knoepke | with 0 comments

As we all think about the various responses—personal, organizational, corporate, governmental—to the earthquakes and humanitarian crises in Haiti, there are instructive failures and rousing successes at every turn.

I have been one of many talking and thinking about Timberland’s response this past week. Some bad PR is in the mix—mostly criticism and skepticism surrounding (a) business practices between Wyclef Jean and the Yéle Haiti foundation and (b) the size and nature of donations triggered by the sale of Timberland products. (If you’re looking for background on the relationship and/or criticism, here’s an article that sums it up.)

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Filed under: strategic philanthropy, cause marketing

Is Wikipedia A Sponsorable Property?

Posted: 1/14/2010 8:19:03 AM by Jim Andrews | with 0 comments

As a nonprofit organization, can Wikipedia be a cause marketing or strategic philanthropy platform? Would sponsors be interested in partnering with the online pioneering information source?

Those are the questions a task force looking at the long-term financial sustainability of the Wikipedia currently is trying to answer. In true wiki fashion, anyone is invited to join the task force.

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Filed under: nonprofit, strategic philanthropy, what is sponsorship, cause marketing

Geeked About Best Buy, Children’s of Minnesota

Posted: 12/17/2009 2:16:56 PM by Vinu Joseph | with 1 comments

If you spend enough time immersed in sponsorship, it can be easy for deals and activations to run together and not seem all that new or surprising. So it’s not often that a deal makes me sit up and say, “How cool is that?” Well, reading this bit of news made me do just that.

Last month, Best Buy opened the first in-hospital Geek Squad tech support precinct at Children’s in Minneapolis, the company’s hometown.

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Filed under: hospitals and healthcare, nonprofit, strategic philanthropy, activation

Is There A Cause Marketer Willing To Not Play It Safe?

Posted: 12/15/2009 9:35:01 AM by Jim Andrews | with 2 comments

In case anyone was wondering what to gift to get me, here’s my one-item grown-up Christmas list. (Man, I have got to stop listening to the all-holiday music station on the way to work.)

I have no expectation of finding this gift under the tree, but one can hold out hope for a Christmas miracle, right?

I would like to see a corporation have the heart and stomach to conduct a cause marketing or strategic philanthropy campaign that tackle issues beyond those that can be considered safe. This is a threshold rarely even approached in CRM’s 26-year history.

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Filed under: nonprofit, strategic philanthropy, cause marketing

Workplace Giving: Time To Party Or To Pitch In?

Posted: 12/2/2009 9:53:29 AM by Vinu Joseph | with 0 comments

Tough economic times have threatened to make the workplace holiday party a thing of the past at some businesses. As this article from TheStreet.com points out, some companies are replacing this annual tradition with a donation or a call for community service.

While charitable giving and community service are to be commended, I can’t help but think of Seinfeld’s George Costanza’s take on donations in lieu of traditional gifts. Efforts to inspire or motivate employees should be more than an effort to whitewash cost-cutting. If the economy were to regain its strength tomorrow, would the holiday party be back on the schedule?

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Filed under: nonprofit, strategic philanthropy, activation