Cause Marketing

Here are five steps, and three pitfalls, for building strategic corporate partnerships for your organization from Fund Raising Day in New York.

Fundraising pros shared 3 keys of a strong nonprofit-corporate partnership in their session "Building Strategic Corporate Partnerships" at Fund Raising Day in New York.

AAA Hellenic Marble & Tile Inc., a remodeling marble and tile company serving the West Chester, Pa., area for more than 30 years, is taking action this month and impacting the community in several ways. Owner Tom Gakis has adopted an Amur tiger at the Philadelphia Zoo through its ADOPT program and is also currently supporting Northern Home for Children in Philadelphia by donating the amount that customers save when they use the current $250 off coupon.  

Artisanal Brands Inc. launched a yearlong campaign to work with Smile Train in its cure of clefts around the world. The campaign, “Say Cheese … Share a Smile!” was developed around the communal nature of Artisanal’s monthly cheese club that will now include a donation of $250 to Smile Train for every annual membership to the club.

Cedarlane Natural Foods Inc., a natural and organic frozen foods company, recently announced that it is donating 11 cents for every Cedarlane Egg White Omelette purchased at Whole Foods Market from now through Jan. 17, 2012, to nonprofit Whole Planet Foundation.

Delivery.com, a comprehensive local e-commerce platform, announced a new charitable initiative enabling users to donate to charity: water, a nonprofit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. In conjunction with Delivery.com’s newly launched Charity at Checkout, Delivery.com users can now directly donate one dollar to charity: water when they finalize their order, making it easy to donate to the organization while ordering online from their favorite local restaurants and stores.

To promote its charitable work, JPMorgan Chase financed and sponsored the “American Giving Awards,” which were televised by NBC on Saturday night. The two-hour show, with Bob Costas as host, profiled recipients of Chase donations.

The producers and the network said Friday that the awards show was a feel-good holiday season special.

Ten NBC-owned television stations across the nation will team with nonprofit news outlets in an attempt to beef up their enterprise and analytical reporting, the network announced Monday. NBC affiliates in Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia will work with non-commercial outfits in those cities — KPCC public radio, the Chicago Reporter and WHYY public radio and television, respectively — while all of the network's owned-and-operated stations will get early access to investigative reports from the independent, nonprofit newsroom ProPublica.

Next Jump, provider of rewards and loyalty programs, announced the launch of OO.com, the company’s first consumer facing shopping site. In conjunction, Next Jump  kicked off a $500,000 fundraising initiative called SA500 Kids to bring technology into classrooms at more than 100,000 public schools across the country.

Everything But Water, the largest women’s specialty swim and resortwear store in the United States, is donating five percent of all sales from Black Friday (Nov. 25) through Cyber Monday (Nov. 28) to LUNGevity Foundation, the nation’s largest lung cancer nonprofit. The five percent donation will apply on all sales, including gift cards, throughout the retailer’s 58 stores and online at www.everythingbutwater.com.