Wired Causes

You are browsing the archives of 2009 October.

My son, Harry, who some of you have watched grow up on this blog celebrated his 10th Birthday! It seems like just yesterday when Harry’s tooth was loose and Wanna, a Cambodian blogger, taught us about the Cambodian tooth fairy….

Public invited to vote on philanthropy’s biggest “game changers,” and more: Friday’s roundup

See larger image here: Map from: Waddell, Steve. 2005. A Learning History of the CARE LAC - Institute for Strategic Clarity Guatemala Poverty Project. Institute for Strategic Clarity, March 15 Note from Beth: As visiting scholar at the Packard Foundation,…

About.com’s social media guru Joanne Fritz has a must-read Non-Profit Blog Carnival here.  Get 8 posts with great fundraising tips (and a link to my post earlier this week, that makes 9!) in a year when we could all use them.  As Joanne points us, CNN just said fundraiser is a stressful job that pays badly.  Fundraisers, unite!  We can do this.

As Cause Marketing blog has pointed out, October means breast cancer awareness month - which also means saturation of cause-related marketing messages.  Unless you understand how to stand out - by storytelling.

This is a photo I took in Silver Spring, Maryland, at the Ulta beauty store.  The window stopped me in my tracks - what was in the window, I wondered?  There I saw letters from breast cancer survivors, their friends and family.  There is something very moving about reading someone’s personal letters.  This was a great way to call attention to the cause - and the company - in an authentic, moving way.  What better way to show you support the breast cancer cause than to put the spotlight on those dealing with it?

ULTA has over 330 stores nationwide participating, according to their corporate website.  People are asked to write their stories of honor and encouragement in a letter and bring it to their local ULTA store where it will be posted in the windows. According the company, “Placed end to end, all of ULTA’s windows stretch over six miles, each of which will be devoted to sharing the stories of those that have fought, are bravely fighting or have been personally affected by breast cancer in some way.”

Use this concept!  If your nonprofit is on a busy street, how about posting letters and photos from people affected by your cause in the window?  How about having your next e-Newsletter written in the form of a letter from someone affected firsthand by your issue?  What if volunteers wrote hand-written thank you letters to your supporters explaining why they love your cause?

The power of one voice telling a good story is more potent than your organizational voice any day,

As Cause Marketing blog has pointed out, October means breast cancer awareness month - which also means saturation of cause-related marketing messages.  Unless you understand how to stand out - by storytelling.

This is a photo I took in Silver Spring, Maryland, at the Ulta beauty store.  The window stopped me in my tracks - what was in the window, I wondered?  There I saw letters from breast cancer survivors, their friends and family.  There is something very moving about reading someone’s personal letters.  This was a great way to call attention to the cause - and the company - in an authentic, moving way.  What better way to show you support the breast cancer cause than to put the spotlight on those dealing with it?

ULTA has over 330 stores nationwide participating, according to their corporate website.  People are asked to write their stories of honor and encouragement in a letter and bring it to their local ULTA store where it will be posted in the windows. According the company, “Placed end to end, all of ULTA’s windows stretch over six miles, each of which will be devoted to sharing the stories of those that have fought, are bravely fighting or have been personally affected by breast cancer in some way.”

Use this concept!  If your nonprofit is on a busy street, how about posting letters and photos from people affected by your cause in the window?  How about having your next e-Newsletter written in the form of a letter from someone affected firsthand by your issue?  What if volunteers wrote hand-written thank you letters to your supporters explaining why they love your cause?

The power of one voice telling a good story is more potent than your organizational voice any day,

Update: Do read Cause Marketing’s suggestions on how to tweak this campaign.  I still like it more than Paul did - but yes, pictures and a stronger call to action couldn’t hurt.  I think the storytelling was terrific.

Can the nonprofit world laugh at itself?

Concerns about federal impact on charity, plus more: Thursday’s roundup

Questions about malaria data, and more: Wednesday’s roundup

Note from Beth: As I listened to the NPR story this week about online privacy, it is becoming very important for us to understand the implications.I really wanted to attend the “Social Networks Friend for Foe?”at UC Berkeley earlier this…