How to Get Started with Cause Marketing + Examples and FAQs

Have you ever chosen to buy a product or service based on their support or partnership with a cause you care about? Even if it’s more expensive than competitors?

Consider buying a reusable water bottle. We all love our Stanley, Hydro Flask, Owala, BruMate, S’well, Camelback, etc. What if your favorite brand or even one of it’s competitors started an initiative where 10% of the proceeds would go to rebuilding communities devastated by natural disasters? Chances are you’d be more inclined to buy the brand supporting this. After all you need a new water bottle and you get to be a part of the philanthropic efforts – it’s a win-win!

This is an example of cause marketing – and did you know your nonprofit can benefit from this?

Read on to find out what cause marketing is, and how your nonprofit can use it to raise funds, gain new supporters and advance your mission.

What is Cause Marketing?

Cause marketing is a mutually beneficial partnership between a nonprofit and a business. The business promotes their product by directing part (or sometimes all) of the proceeds to a nonprofit. It’s a way for them to demonstrate theirsocial responsibility, while supporting a nonprofit whose mission aligns with their brand and values.

One of the first and most famous cause marketing efforts was the 1983 partnership between American Express and the nonprofit restoring the Statue of Liberty. Every time cardholders used their AmEx, the company donated a penny to the cause. They raised $1.7M this way. More card activity for the company + more money for the nonprofit = everyone wins.

Is Cause Marketing Effective? Here are the Benefits

More and more companies are recognizing the effectiveness of cause marketing.

According to the 2019 Porter Novelli/Cone Purpose Biometrics Study, 72% of Americans say it’s important to them that the companies they buy from reflect their values and 86% say they’re likely to purchase from purpose-driven companies.

This means that companies who associate themselves with a nonprofit experience non only an increase in sales, but also increased brand loyalty. Of course, the partnership also offers a massive benefit to the associated nonprofit.

Here are the benefits to each party involved:

For-Profit Benefits of Cause Marketing:

• Public Goodwill: the company establishes themselves as purpose-drive and socially responsible.
• Increased Trust and Brand Loyalty: customers appreciate buying from a company whose values align with their own.
• Increased Sales: customers are more likely to purchase a product when they know doing so also supports a worthy cause.
• Access to the Nonprofit’s Audience: the nonprofit promotes the partnership in their network, creating brand awareness and more customers for the company.

Nonprofit Benefits of Cause Marketing:

• Diversified Revenue: not only does the nonprofit receive a portion of the company’s profits, but the partnership could also result in new recurring donors and additional sponsorship opportunities.
• Access to the For-Profit’s Audience: more often than not, the for-profit has a much bigger marketing budget than the nonprofit, so they can spread the message to more people, increasing the nonprofit’s brand awareness, and helping bring in potential new supporters.
• Increased Donations: your nonprofit’s cause is becoming front of mind for those consumers of the for-profit business you’ve partnered with. They could donate more than the pre-set amount of your cause marketing campaign or check out your website later and donate on their own.

How to Get Started with Cause Marketing

Clearly, cause marketing is a fantastic fundraising stream to tap into. But the question is – how to get started? Building a partnership with a business, especially the right one can be challenging.

We’ll show you step by step on how to make a great cause marketing campaign, from finding the right partner to selecting your campaign’s strategy to launching and reviewing its success!

1. Identify Your For-Profit Partner

To get started with cause marketing, don’t just cold-call Nike or Amazon. Instead, look for companies whose work is similar or related to the work of your nonprofit. If your nonprofit focuses on animal wellfare, connect with local pet supplies shops.

When you find a business whose values and purpose align with yours, the partnership will be much easier to promote. Ultimately, the campaign will be more effective as it will attract more people who already have an interest in your cause.

To start, look at the relationships and assets you already have.

Let’s go back to our animal shelter nonprofit example. Perhaps there’s a CEO/owner of a pet food business that adopted their dog from you. Maybe he’s donated his extra supplies to your shelter during your last fundraising event. This is the perfect type of person to reach out to for a cause marketing campaign.

Potential connections and assets include:

• Your board and their connections
• Past corporate volunteers
• Past corporate sponsors or donors
• Events
• Social media
• Your organization’s reputation and name

Once you’ve exhausted the possibilities of an immediate connection, start looking a little further afield. This could be anyone that might have been involved with your nonprofit’s work, but not necessarily a supporter. Consider vendors from your past fundraising event, like caterers or the clothing company that made your merchandise. These businesses are aware of your cause, you’ve already worked with them and are considered a warm lead for potential partnerships.

As always, check with your team to make sure any potential partner is a good fit. Ask your corporate philanthropy team, board members and fundraising staff for their input before starting any official partnership.

2. Build a Proposal

Before you can make an offer to a company, you need to know what you’re offering. You’ll be much more likely to receive a positive answer if you can make it clear to the business how partnering with you will benefit them.

Create a proposal that answers the following questions:

• What is your organization’s mission and how is it relevant to the company’s work?
• What is your current reach (i.e. how large is your community/audience)
• How would the company benefit from the partnership?
• How would supporting your cause help build their business?

You don’t have to be a giant organization with a famous name to appeal to for-profits. In Cause Marketing for Dummies, Waters notes,“ If you can’t connect with businesses based on your brand recognition, you have to connect based on what you offer, your marketing benefits. We beat out many a nonprofit because we had a better package to offer. It’s not always about the cause. That’s why they call it cause marketing.”

Your proposal should essentially be you selling your nonprofit’s partnership to a business. So focus on what you bring to the table, hopefully it’s a delicious win-win cake.

3. Build a Relationship

Once you have an “in” and know what you’re bringing to the table, you’re ready to make contact. With a warm prospect, you stand a better chance of getting past gatekeepers and right to the decision-maker. Depending on the company and your relationship, the people you want to talk to may vary: marketing, corporate social responsibility or executives can all be part of a cause marketing discussion.

Unlike a corporate donation, cause marketing is a partnership that aims for mutual benefit. Therefore, it’s wise to approach your prospective partner with some ideas, but also a lot of flexibility. They’ll have their own marketing goals and a better idea of their capabilities — they may be able to offer something you hadn’t even thought of.

While you’ll be coming with a lot of ideas, a list of your assets and hard data about your audience during this first meeting, be sure to also ask a lot of questions to ensure alignment.

• How can our nonprofit help your business’s corporate social responsibility goals?
• What kind of cause marketing campaign works best for your business?
• Who on your team will be involved in our campaign?
• What assets will you bring to our partnership and what assets do you need us to bring?

Leave room for brainstorming and be flexible on suggestions. A successful partnership will involve a lot of discussion and your cause marketing campaign could transform into something you might not have expected!

4. Select the Type of Cause Marketing Campaign

The hard part is done, now that you have a partner for your cause marketing campaign, you just need to iron out the details. There are 5 main types of campaigns you can utilize when it comes to cause marketing. Depending on your nonprofit and the business you partner with, some ways be more effective than others.

Percentage of Sales

A percentage of sales campaign is pretty much what it sounds like, a percentage of a business’s sales during your cause marketing campaign will be donated to your nonprofit’s cause. You can do this in a couple ways. Perhaps it’s just for one specific product in a company’s inventory or it could be their whole array of merchandise.

The portion of sales and which items/services it applies to will be up to your and your partnered business. However, it’s most common to see 1-3% of total sales donated.

Percentage of Profit

Similar to percentage of sales, percentage of profit will have a percentage of a company’s profit donated to a nonprofit during the cause marketing campaign. However, the percentage of profit tends to have more variety than percentage of sales when it comes to this type of partnership.

Some companies will do 5% of profits during the campaign whereas others will have a more significant amount like 33% or even 100% of profits during a certain time period or specific product.

Flat Donation Based on Sales

Some companies commit to flat donations during every sale they have that goes to their partner nonprofit. This is common when a business has a minimum purchase and then a set donation amount for that sale. An example of this would be $5-$10 donated to your nonprofit for every sale of $50 or more. Sometimes this form of cause marketing can include an option for customers to donate more to the nonprofit’s cause in addition to the flat donation made by the business.

Round-Up Promotion

This type of cause marketing is super common amongst larger companies like grocery stores and large retailers. When making a purchase, customers are prompted to round up to the next dollar, with this “round-up” being donated to the nonprofit’s cause. Even though it may seem like a few coins per transaction, this can add up and really make a difference for a nonprofit!

Buy One, Give One

For companies that have physical merchandise, buy one, give one is a great way to give back to communities that nonprofits frequently work with. Once a customer buys one of the items that are part of the campaign (whether this is clothing or supplies), a second item will be donated. This is super common with life necessities like shoes and socks, jackets, glasses, lunchboxes, school supplies, etc.

There are many companies out there where this is more than just a cause marketing campaign – this is their business model. A great example of this is Bombas, a clothing company, known most for their socks (I have them and can attest they’re great!)

Cause Marketing FAQs:

What to do When a Business Asks Your Nonprofit to Partner

Most of the time, you’ll be reaching out to companies, but of course, it could also work the other way. When a business comes knocking on your nonprofit’s door, consider:

• Does the partnership make sense?
• Do their purpose and values align with yours?
• Have they participated in similar partnerships in the past?
• Will the mutual benefit be equal? (Or will they get much more out of the partnership than you?)
• Do you want what they’re offering?
• Are there any conflicts of interest?

It can be tempting to say “yes” to anyone who offers a portion of their profits to your organization, but don’t forget that a cause marketing partnership is based on strong brand alignment between the nonprofit and business.

This means that your brand will be associated with theirs and vice verse. If the company that reached out to you isn’t truly purpose-driven, has had bad PR in the past or has questionable values or practices, it’s best to decline. Going ahead with a partnership like this could result in lost supporters and a PR nightmare for your organization.

The bottom line is when you decide to be a business’s nonprofit partner, you’re saying your stand behind this company 100%. Be confident in your decision and always ask your team if you’re uncertain about the company’s values, motivators and social impact.

How Do For-Profit Companies Pick a Cause?

With cause marketing on the rise, companies receive more and more collaboration proposals from nonprofits. So how do they ultimately decide who to work with? And how can your organizations increase your chances of getting selected as their nonprofit partner?

As we already discussed, the number one thing you can do is reach out to a company where you already have connections. They’ll be much more likely to say “yes” if they already know and support you.

Other than that, here are a few things that companies look for in nonprofits:

• The nonprofit’s mission aligns with the company’s values and purpose
• The nonprofit’s mission resonates with the general public and/or the company’s target audience
• The nonprofit has been actively working on advancing their mission and can demonstrate recent, relevant, measurable and most importantly, positive impact
• The nonprofit has a passionate and involved board of directors
• The nonprofit has a clear vision and a detailed strategic plan for the next few years
• The nonprofit has a clear marketing plan with an outline of the campaign, past marketing examples, lists of potential donors and maybe marketing materials pre-made (social media graphics, hashtags, photos related to the cause, etc.)
• The nonprofit has been active in the community, hosting events and securing partnerships with other nonprofits and small businesses
• The nonprofit has been featured in local media
• The nonprofit has an active and engaged community of supporters

Use this list to help you determine whether your nonprofit is ready for a cause marketing partnership. If not, it may be a good idea to do a bit of work before approaching a potential for-profit partner.

Examples of Cause Marketing

Cause marketing can take many forms. Here are three examples of cause-related marketing campaigns to inspire your imagination.

1. Ben and Jerry’s Justice ReMix’d

Ice cream company Ben and Jerry’s has partnered with the Advancement Project National Office to raise awareness about criminal justice reform. A portion of proceeds from their Justice ReMix’d flavor go to the Advancement Project, and the company provides education and action suggestions to their customers. The Advancement Project National Office promotes the partnership with the hashtag  #JusticeRemixd.

2. The (RED) Campaign

(RED) partners with brands to create products and experiences to raise money to fight HIV/AIDS. Companies create (RED) versions of their products, and the proceeds go to a global fund that makes grants to HIV/AIDS organizations.

3. Warby Parker “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair”

Optical company Warby Parker partners with social enterprise Vision Spring to donate a pair of glasses for every pair they sell. Warby Parker gets the image boost of helping, Vision Spring gets more resources to do their work.

Cause Marketing: Good Potential for Nonprofits

Marco found that cause marketing was a good fit for his organization. He identified his connections and assets, built on his existing relationship with a company, and together, they created a campaign that truly benefited everyone.

Think about the companies your organization is connected to. As you’re considering options for corporate philanthropy, add cause marketing to your list of ways to work together.

Waters encourages small nonprofits to be bold and try it. He says, “You can do it! But you need to educate yourself, be realistic about what cause marketing can and can’t do and be willing to try and fail before you succeed.”