Join us as we unveil our new look and see what it means for us, our clients and ultimately, our world.
Pam Mauk, Executive Director of Family Resource Center will share some of the important work they’re doing to support 18 charities that provide essential human services on the Eastside.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Doors open at 4pm; presentation begins at 5:30pm
Instead of giving another towel warmer, foot massager, electric razor, cat calendar, crumb duster or electronic jewelry cleaner—give Toms Shoes.
For every pair you purchase, Toms will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. One for one.
1,000,000 men, women, boys and girls are suffering from Podoconiosis in Ethiopia. What is Podoconiosis? A soil-transmitted disease caused by walking, farming, working, playing or running barefoot in silica-rich soil.
What is silica? Silica is ancient volcanic glass that penetrates the skin and makes its way into the lymphatic system. The feet and lower legs swell. Open sores and ulcers develop. Infection sets in.
But here is the good news: Podoconiosis is 100% preventable. Without the use of a vaccine or an expensive antibiotic. This disease is prevented by simply wearing shoes.
And that’s where you come in.
This holiday season Toms wants to give 30,000 pairs of shoes to children in Ethiopia. And we need your help.
So, share this video, forward this link, make flyers, call your congressman.
Tell Bush, tell Obama. tell your mama.
And join us. Help us reach 30,000.
Give TOMS Shoes.
Sure, to give 30,000 pairs of shoes, they have to sell 30,000 pairs of shoes.
Thanks to Martin Pierce for sharing this campaign with me. He also thought his nuts (actually, the can they came in) would be a great topic for the blog on Wednesday. They were.
I offered a bounty for ideas and examples: for everyone that contributed at least one idea or example that made the Top 10, Outsource Marketing would donate $20 to a food bank of each respondent’s choosing.
I received so many good ideas, I expanded the list from 10 to 25.
Without further ado and in no particular order, here are—
25 ways your business can help fight poverty
Cook and distribute meals
St. Clouds restaurant in Leschi (Seattle, WA) holds a monthly cooking project for the homeless. Each month, the restaurant invites the community to come to its kitchen bringing whatever food they can spare…St. Clouds provides the proteins. Together they cook custom gourmet meals for the homeless, who could never afford such a meal. These are delivered to 200 people at five shelters and a tent city around town each month.
Promotion of the event has been strictly via word-of-mouth.
This is a unique, very cool local outreach that is, in my opinion, truly an act of kindness.
Eric Weaver
Partner with a charity, publish a picture book documenting their lives
This year GE in Italy supported “Pane Quotidiano” (means “daily bread”), a charitable association founded in 1898 in Milano to help feed the poor. In 1908 the association was “formally” established and, on June 4th, celebrated a 100 years of feeding the less fortunate.
The contributions donated on this occasion were used to publish a picture book documenting the lives of the association’s guests. The book was sold in libraries for donations. Additionally the association was also able to buy a new truck need to collect the food that everyday businesses and/or distributors give away because in excess or approaching the expiration date. It was touching and great to be part of this initiative!
Beatrice Sarni
Promote trade and partnership in underdeveloped countries
Check out Connect Ethiopia. An organization started by business in Ireland. It’s goal is to create business links between companies in Ireland and Ethiopia and use business and trade to develop poor countries.
Michael O’Sullivan
Get your hands dirty
Hands on — I’d offer.
I’ve found that the best reality of working authentically, to contribute in a reflectively meaningful way — meaning fully — is to do it your self; hands on, live, being in the space, contributing eye to eye. Rather than dropping some capital — what can you do, in the telling of your story that is live to them, live for you. It’s a life, it’s a live, it’s alive.
You’re in that circle, you’re doing the work, making the contribution — and it’s real. No financial smoke that distances you from the reality.
You’re there.
Do something and you’ve got the passion to spread the word. Write a check and the instant of giving dissipates in an instance, as well. Do both and deliver it by hand and do some work at the same time! The ring is reflective, the song is sung true and the circle of giving and heart fullness is unbroken.
Beauty full.
Tim Girvin
Encourage employee involvement with a charity
You can help the poor by telling everyone in your company to donate some time and volunteer at the local food bank.
Margaret
Provide opportunity and access
In most low income areas, there is little opportunity or access to jobs that pay a decent wage, provide health care, or allow for flexible schedules.
Poor people don’t need a one time handout – they need access to jobs, personal and professional education, and proper diet, to ensure they can sustain the responsibility of providing for themselves.
If businesses truly want to help they should start:
Paying decent wages, offset by the cost of company provided health insurance
Provide training – through partnerships with their state employment agencies and local colleges to keep the cost low
Move away from the 9-5 in the cubicle mentality and provide flex scheduling especially for people with children and those not in customer service positions.
Create a local coalition. ex. Local businesses could partner with a local grocers to provide discounts to employees and nutritional training. Grocers partner with local farmers who partner with local transport companies, and so forth.
Rochelle Robinson
Create a contest and use video and social media to create an actively engaged audience
Any firm could have a blog on their webpage. This activity will also be of commercial interest of the firm as people will talk about what is happening on the webpage and return to look what happens next. The firm choose a project. The project of the month: Like in the television programme, “The secret millionaire” they go to a poor area and find a project, where some good people dedicate their lives to help other people.
On the blog they present those people and open an account to wich people can make donations and write comments, ideas or even offer to join to give a helping hand. It is after this possible to follow this place and the people, who work there by clicking on the link. But each month a new project is presented with a picture on the webpage. But still it is possible to follow links to former projects of the month.
Pia Hede
Create a matching program for employees
Boeing is holding a special employee drive for the month of September. They are matching triple for each e-giving dollar. Funds go to local organizations who provide supplies to local food banks and meal programs in the Puget Sound. This is a great incentive for employees to give to the program.
Arden B.
Give discounts to clients for donating needed goods
Numbers 9, 10 and 11 were contributed by Jovan Pollard
Allow staff to donate money or goods to wear jeans or “dress down” on a specified day
Volunteer your own professional services
Vancity’s Change Everything initiative
Caleb Chang contributed an impressive list on his own, and contributed numbers 12-24
Did you know that, on average, teachers spend about $1,200 of their own money to cover the cost of classroom supplies?
The “teacher-funded” classroom is an outrage when you consider teacher compensation, and OfficeMax has partnered with Adopt-A-Classroom “to recognize extraordinary teachers for their dedication and innovative approach to education.”
During their A Day Made Better event, 1,300 teachers across the US were honored for their efforts and received classroom supplies valued at more than $1,000.
Here’s how it went:
Bob Thacker, senior vice president of marketing for OfficeMax:
Teachers inspire and shape our country’s greatest asset, our children, and it is astounding that they are left to cover the cost of doing a good job.
With our ‘A Day Made Better’ events, OfficeMax wants to inspire a national movement of support for teachers by attracting national attention to them on one special day and showing how easy it is to change this deplorable situation.
OfficeMax gets a tip of my hat for tackling this problem. I recently served on the board of an educational foundation whose primary focus is to bridge the education funding gap in my town.
This problem is real.
So, does this change your opinion of OfficeMax, or will you still go to Office Depot or Staples for your office supplies?
TOMS Shoes was founded by Blake Mycoskie after a life-changing trip to Argentina. While there, he learned about the Alpargata soft shoe, but ironically, also met children in villages that had no shoes.
So he created a shoe company whose goals aren’t based on shoes sold, but on shoes given away. For every pair of TOMS shoes sold, the company donates a pair of shoes to a child in need.
Here’s a video of shoe drop in 2006:
In the video, the narrator made a comment worth repeating:
Anybody who’s starting a company. . .
Everybody who has an idea. . .
Incorporate giving in what you do
Nobody would have heard of TOMS if they weren’t doing good. Giving away a pair of shoes for every pair sold is more than just a differentiator—it represents a fundamental shift in the way to think about business.
The Responsible Marketing Blog will be participating in Blog Action Day on Wednesday, October 15th.
Here’s what it’s about:
First and last, the purpose of Blog Action Day is to create a discussion. We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue.
By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.
The video that was produced to encourage bloggers to participate does a nice job explaining what this is all about:
I use the word “our” because we’re going to write it together.
To me, useful would be a solid list of real world examples of businesses, large and small, doing things to help the poor.
And instead of doing a search, I’d like the examples to come from you, the readers of The Responsible Marketing Blog.
Here’s a little incentive to make it interesting:
No, it’s not for you!
Outsource Marketing will donate $20 to the food bank of your choice on your behalf if your example or examples makes the top 10 list in the Blog Action Day post.
It doesn’t have to be your company, it can be any business you’ve seen that’s doing some good for the poor. The more detail, the better.
Even if your example doesn’t make the top 10, I will also link to the comments from this post so all ideas will be shared.
Let’s build this together!
Where have you seen business helping the poor?
Comment below to participate.
. . .
Please forward this post to a friend, post it on your social networks and circulate it around your office. The more examples the better!
Social media can be an incredible force for doing good.
I’ve spoken about it a bit lately, sharing some real world examples in the deck below:
Examples don’t necessarily explain how to do it, so here’s a simple, grassroots way I used social media to raise $1,250 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association just yesterday.
Here’s how I did it.
First, I created a blog post explaining what I was doing.
Then I used Twitter and Facebook to broadcast my requests, Brightkite to post photos (which in turn, post to Twitter), Ping.fm to send information across all my networks, and a ChipIn widget to collect and tally donations.
All of the services above are free.
This blog has been my aggregation point, and it’s basically free, too.
The only hard cost was from Paypal, my clearinghouse for payments, totaling about 3%, which my firm simply made up the difference.
There are options that don’t cost, such as the Causes application on Facebook and MySpace, but the MDA didn’t have a link set up there.
What’s the upside?
What will Outsource Marketing, The Responsible Marketing Blog and I gain from all this? Well, I had fun and it always feels good to do good.
Everyone at Outsource Marketing is here because we care about more than making a buck—we want to do some good too. While my colleagues enjoyed seeing me forcefully removed from the premises, they were genuinely glad our firm was involved. Efforts like this reinforce the culture we’re working to build.
Sure, you can’t spend goodwill, but keeping your team happy reduces turnover.
And lower turnover results in higher client satisfaction.
And higher client satisfaction results in less client churn.
And less churn makes for a more profitable company.
I’ll take all of the above, thank you.
You can help the MDA (or a nonprofit of your choice) too.
If you are ever asked to participate in the MDA Lock-Up in your community, do it. The MDA offers “Wanted” posters and plenty of ideas to promote it around your office.
It’s easy, it’s fun and it’s for a great cause.
Ping me and I’ll promote it here on The Responsible Marketing Blog.
Tomorrow, it’s back to strictly marketing posts. Although I never heard a peep saying as much, I assume a few of you were beginning to suffer from “fundraising fatigue.”
Rest assured, I’ll stay out of jail for at least another year.
So, what’s the most creative fundraiser you’ve ever seen?
I raised enough bail to get out of jail at the MDA Lockup, but more importantly, we raised $1,250 for the MDA.
Your donations will help the MDA continue research for treatments and cures for 43 neuromuscular diseases, and help provide wheelchairs, clinic visits, support groups and summer camp for the families served by the MDA.
A few pictures follow. Mouse over for captions, click to enlarge.
Donations came from people as close as down the hall, to as far as Dublin, Ireland and ranged from $10 to $250.
Here are the generous people who donated:
Eric Anderson
Kevin Burgess
Tony Cheng
Renee Chow
LaDonna Coy
Mark Jordan
Mike Komola
Joseph McGrath
Mark McLaren
Freddy Nager
Deston Nokes
Victoria Ostrovskaya
Mike Rask
Shari Storm
Loni Syltebo
Amanda Wolfman
My firm, Outsource Marketing, threw in a dollar or two as well.
Thanks, everyone.
If you’d like to say thanks to the folks above, comment below.
