Merging Corporate Philanthropy & Customer Interaction

Today I received an e-mail from customer experience management solutions company Tealeaf Technology that really caught my eye. It is a great example of marrying customer engagement and corporate philanthropy to do good for the fundraising sector and the bottom line.

The subject line reads, "Help Shape Our 2011 Giving Campaign." For me, that made the e-mail impossible not to click on. It put the power in the consumer to help decide in which what worthy cause Tealeaf should invest.

From there, the e-mail did a nice balancing the company's goal and how vital it is for Tealeaf to get input from its customers on which cause it should support.

Here is the copy of the e-mail:

Dear Joe,

One of the most gratifying parts of my job at Tealeaf is that each year I get to run our annual corporate giving campaign. In prior years, Tealeaf selected a charitable cause based on feedback from our employees.

This year, we've decided to let our customers, colleagues and industry contacts help us decide who to support. We are starting with a list of four very worthy organizations, all of whom are doing good things to help those in need.

All you need to do to help us decide which charity to support in 2011 is vote. Simply click on the charity of your choice in the list on the right to place your vote.

The organization that receives the most votes wins. In addition to our normal corporate donation, we will match it with one representing all of you.

Thank you in advance for your help in our 2011 Holiday Giving Campaign.

Best regards,

Geoff Galat
Vice President of Worldwide Marketing

Then there was a "Vote Here" box asking you to please select an organization below, offering the choices of the American Cancer Society, ASPCA, Meals on Wheels and Toys for Tots — following by a thank-you. All recipients had to do was click on their nonprofit of choice to vote, which would take you to a landing page confirming your vote: