Citizen Brand

Weekend Links

A few things to ponder over the weekend.

Tom makes a great point to all non profits:  marketing is not a four letter word.

Ken takes another look at the future of newspapers and suggests some ways they can help themselves.  I would point to the Lawrence Journal World as one paper that understands the future.

The New York Times reports on the latest global warming study.  It seems we may have a problem.

We were a year late but we finally watched a great movie called The Lost City directed by Andy Garcia.  Garcia, a native of Cuba, also leads a great cast, not many of whom we knew.  There have been many movies made against the backdrop of the Cuban revolution  in the 1950's but Garcia's take is authentic and unique.  If you haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to find it.

Finally, back at Augusta at the halfway point of the Masters golf tournament, it is wide open.  I will still bet on Tiger Woods  to win his fifth green jacket.

Enjoy the weekend.

PRWeek/Barkley Cause Survey

There is much going on at our company these days.  We simplified our name; added a rocket to our logo; and we are getting ready to move into new digs in a building that Howard Hughes once roamed around in when he owned Trans World Airlines.

We are now simply known as Barkley.  It's the name most people have referred to us for years.  And in mid-November, we move into our new offices in the Crossroads Arts District of Kansas City in a building that was once TWA's world headquarters.  Howard Hughes put a rocket on top of the building to signify his dream that someday TWA would take passengers into outer space.  We have put the rocket back on the building as we bring this classic retro modern building back to life.

For us the rocket signifies our company's desire to explore and discover new ways to help our clients succeed.  One of the growing ways we are doing that is through cause branding.  And for the second consecutive year, Barkley Public Relations has partnered with PRWeek Magazine to sponsor a survey on the state of cause branding.  If you have not seen it yet. you can read it or download it at our website - www.beappr.com.

This year, we tried something new.  We conducted a consumer survey, PRWeek's first ever.  We talked with members of three different generations - Gen Y; Gen X; and, the Boomers.  We learned that all generations continue to see the growing importance of corporations partnering with non profits to further causes through education, awareness and funding.  There are differences as you would suspect there would be.

Boomers are more trusting of companies in general while the Gen X'ers (30-41 years old) are the most skeptical and trust corporate motivations the least.  Two thirds of all respondents said it is important to know why a company has chosen to support a particular cause.  And by almost a three to one margin, all respondents said a company should support a variety of causes as opposed to supporting only a single cause.

Almost two thirds (64%) of all respondents said they have purchased a branded product because it supports a cause they believe in.  And almost nine out of ten said it is important for companies to support causes or charitable organizations.

I encourage you to take a look at the entire survey and accompanying article in the October 23 edition of PRWeek.  Please let us know what you think of the data and give us feedback so we can make the 2007 survey even better.

Magazines for kids

Jack Yan recently pointed us to a great cause that everyone can get behind.  It is called MagazineLiteracy.org

MagazineLiteracy.org helps kids learn to read and to build their self-esteem by mobilizing business and community literacy partnerships that provide wonderful children's magazines to schools, and other reading programs. Your support unleashes the awesome potential of children’s magazines as a powerful literacy resource for kids and families.

Here are some of the programs that companies or organizations can support:

• The Kids Magazine Airlift sends your gift magazine subscription to a school, or homeless or domestic violence shelter to help children learn to read.
• Magazine Mentors are individuals, businesses, and organizations that sponsor children in classrooms, shelters, and other literacy programs in their own communities.
• KinderHarvest matches surplus children's magazines, which would otherwise be discarded or destroyed, to food banks, food pantries, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and disaster relief programs. Individual and business support helps cover warehouse, handling, and shipping expenses.
• 100% of local sponsor pledges are used to provide direct help to the kids and families in community literacy programs.

There is also an accompanying blog.

Other than making sure a child has enough food to eat each day, making sure a child learns to read may be the most important gift anyone can give.  Check this great cause out and pass it on to others.

Goodwill or not?

No doubt I will return with some thoughts about my weekend in Utah at the Public Innovators Summit, but I need to digress right now and let you in on an evolving case study going on with Goodwill Industries in Virginia.

Andrea over at New Millenium PR reported this weekend about a situation  that raises all kinds of ethical and reputational issues for Goodwill.  I urge you to read it and either comment here or join the growing discussion going on over at Andrea's place.

Front Porches vs. Backyard Decks

It has been a full day of ideas and discussion at the first annual Public Innovators Summit.  The event is sponsored by The Harwood Institute and Fast Company along with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation.  Leaders representing government, nonprofit, corporate and media sectors have come together this weekend in the mountains of Utah to figure out how to generate innovative thinking to address societal challenges.  There is a consensus that the private sector celebrates and rewards innovation and that a similar approach is needed if we are to improve education, health care and the general standard of living for many people who are in need.

A common theme of our discussions is how to create a greater sense of community overall.  We have talked at length how technology can be both a hurdle to community development as well as a great generator of communities.  Not surprisingly, this group understands the power of technology and many ideas emerged about how to leverage technology to help non profits grow stronger both financially as well as reputationally.

My favorite analogy of the day came from Art Dunning, Vice President of the University of Georgia in Athens.  He talked about how there was a greater sense of community in the days when most homes had front porches.  Sitting on the front porch guaranteed interaction with your neighbors or anyone else who might be happening by.  People who knew each other and communicated regularly were more likely to be interested in each other and watch out for each other.

Art said all that changed as people moved to the suburbs and replaced the porch on the front of the house with a deck in the backyard.  The social center of the house moved from the public arena at the front of the house to the privacy of the backyard.  It became invitation only.  Neighbors were redefined not as people who you knew but as people who lived on the same street as you.

I thought this was a simple and powerful observation.  What we need to do is figure out what the front porches of the future are going to be to help us reconnect with each other.

Public Innovators Summit

I'm just outside Midway, Utah at the Zermatt Resort (feel sorry for me?) to attend the first annual Public Innovators Summit sponsored by The Harwood Institute and Fast Company.  The Summit is supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The list of attendees represents a cross section of leaders in business, government, education and non profit organizations.  The driving force behind the Summit is Richard Harwood, founder of The Harwood Institute.  You can easily understand the reason for this Summit when you understand the Institute's mission.  This is from their website.

Rich Harwood founded the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation to help people imagine and act for the public good. For almost 20 years, he and his colleagues have been evolving both the ideas and the practical approaches for changing the negative conditions in society that too often divide people and keep them from making progress in their neighborhoods, communities, and the nation as a whole.

At The Harwood Institute, we seek nothing less than to spark fundamental change in American public life - so that people can tap their own potential to make a difference and join together to build a common future. We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works within a long tradition of small, catalytic, and public-spirited organizations in American history that have sought to improve public life and politics.

We believe there is enormous potential to unleash in America if we can pursue an alternate path for ourselves, our communities, and this nation.

What attracted me to this Summit and my desire to be selected as a participant is part personal and part professional.  One of the drivers of our company is to help our clients get on the path to becoming what we call Citizen Brands.  We believe it is now a must for corporations to be engaged in helping to improve society, not just sell their products and services.  That is my professional reason for being here.

On a personal note, I love the idea of spending a couple of days engaging with other people who share a common interest of figuring out how to make a difference in the world and to help convince others to do the same thing.  Not to mention, I'm back in the mountains for a couple of days.

I look forward to sharing some of the discussions that come out of the Summit.

Non profit IPO

What if you could invest in a non profit like you can a business?  Fast Company says it is already being done.

It only makes sense when you think about it.  Non profits beat their heads against the wall courting donors year around and every so often conduct intricate, expensive and time consuming capital campaigns.  On the other hand, donors are always looking to figure out what the return will be on their donation.

A non profit IPO would allow non profits and donors to deal with each other as business partners.  The amounts invested will likely be larger than the traditional donation and the non profit can use the money to grow the entire organization, and not be tied to using it only for specific programs. 

Non profits spend too much time trying to line up one donor at a time to fund one program at a time.  Under this IPO scenario, the non profit can invest more time in seeing their mission accomplished.  That is the way it should be.