We may still be in the thick of summer, but any marketer knows the holiday season is just around the corner. Planning for end-of-year marketing, sales, or fundraising campaigns is likely already in full swing. The holidays are a busy time for both charitable organizations and commercial brands alike. Roughly 20% of all retail spending and 30% of all charitable giving happen between November and December. During this flurry of activity, we regularly see brands team up with charitable organizations to demonstrate that they, too, are giving back.
These arrangements can be great, but far too often they’re short-term, short-sighted, and ineffective. Partnerships thrown together for the sake of Giving Tuesday or some other immediate purpose often leave consumers, employees, and charity partners with a bad taste in their mouth. It doesn’t have to be that way. When done well, charities and brands can create powerful strategic partnerships that not only give back to charities but help brands find their heart.
Why Half-Hearted Partnerships Backfire
In recent years, consumers have asked more of brands. They don’t just want the products a brand produces. They want to know what the brand stands for, its values and ideals. There are many ways brands can meet this demand, but partnering with a charity is a reliable way for a corporation to present itself as a good corporate citizen.
Yet far too many corporate/charity partnerships are shallow at best and counterproductive at worst. Consumers can see through, and sometimes even punish, half-hearted attempts by brands to garner a halo effect through a superficial CSR project. Whether it’s greenwashing (fake environmentalism), pinkwashing (fake feminist positioning), or woke-washing (fake diversity efforts), consumers can tell, and it turns them off. Worse, the causes brands are trying to serve can get hurt in the process. That’s a shame, because there are so many wonderful charitable organizations brands can partner with to build lasting relationships and real impact.
So if you’re a brand looking to partner with a charity — or a charity pitching brands — here are some ways to think about crafting a relationship that serves both organizations and makes a difference well beyond the holiday season.
A Framework for Getting It Right: The 4 C’s
There are over 1.8 million charitable organizations in the United States, each dedicated to a moving cause. With so many problems facing the world, how does a brand decide where to put its resources? As with any other business strategy, brands need to be discerning and strategic. We think about the strongest CSR partnerships as sharing four traits: Connected, Concrete, Collaborative, and committed to Continuous Improvement. Originally developed by CSR and non-profit consultant, Suzanne Smith, the four C’s provide a reliable framework for creating meaningful and impactful charity/brand collaborations.
1. Connected
The best partnerships are ones where the two organizations simply make sense together. There’s an obvious link between the charity’s mission and the brand’s purpose. A charitable cause can be connected to a company’s core competencies, operations, consumer base, employee makeup, or another facet of the business, but there should be some logical thread.
Take Ralph Lauren’s support of the Soil Health Institute, a regenerative farming and sustainability charity. On the surface, it might seem odd for a fashion giant to back a farming charity. But as a major purchaser of cotton, wool, and other natural textiles, supporting the ecological and regenerative cultivation of those materials makes a lot of sense. Ralph Lauren needs reliable, sustainable sources of these textiles on a changing planet, and the Soil Health Institute gains both revenue and a credible corporate partner to help advocate for more sustainable farming systems.
2. Concrete
Another common failure mode in cause marketing is trying to do too much. Too many brands jump from one cause du jour to the next, chasing whatever’s shiny. Each individual cause may be worthy, but spreading corporate support this thin ensures neither the brand nor its charity partners get any real return on the investment.
Focusing on a cause or charity that’s meaningfully connected to a corporate competency, rather than trying to support everything, narrows the scope in a way that maximizes impact. A few well-chosen partners in a small number of issue areas means those charities are better supported, and it signals to consumers and employees that the company is serious about its commitment, building greater trust and admiration for the brand.
3. Collaborative
Any partnership should be collaborative, and this is especially true of a corporate/charity relationship. The corporation isn’t a savior swooping in, and the charity isn’t a saintly figure to be managed. Both are organizations that need to roll up their sleeves and work together, using their respective skills to create meaningful impact.
4. Continuous Improvement
Every corporate initiative should have defined goals and be regularly reviewed for improvement and charitable partnerships are no exception. Is the partnership bearing fruit for both parties? This can be measured through metrics like dollars raised, volunteer hours, programmatic outcomes, and consumer sentiment. However you choose to measure it, measurement itself is essential. It’s what allows for new ideas, innovation, and improvement over time.
The Payoff
When brands and charities team up the right way, they create results that are more than the sum of their parts. Brands get to demonstrate real commitment to their communities, and charities get the support they need to do their work. And when partnerships are built around the 4 C’s, they hold up all year round, not just during the holidays, cementing a relationship that’s genuinely powerful and meaningful.
If you’re evaluating a potential partnership, start here: does this cause connect logically to who we are as a company? Are we focused enough to make a real dent? Are both sides showing up as equals? And do we have a way to measure whether it’s working? Answer those four questions honestly, and you’re already ahead of most corporate/charity partnerships out there.