Non-profit organisations or NGOs need to continually work towards gathering funds for a cause. Whether it is a cause dedicated to education, health, livelihood, or any other developmental issue, funds are crucial for the initiatives. NGOs use a range of ways to collect funds, including Cause Related Marketing.
What is Cause Related Marketing or CRM?
The phrase was initially used by American Express to characterise its 1983 fundraising effort for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. Every time someone used an American Express charge card, the company gave one penny toward the repair.
Cause marketing definition, thus, can be any collaboration between a non-profit and a business. The collaboration is aimed towards increasing sales for the business and promoting the NGO’s cause.
There are instances of Cause Related Marketing everywhere in today’s world. You might have come across it while ordering food, buying clothes, or booking your airline tickets. Businesses urge customers to donate a small amount to a particular fund or dedicate a share of the earnings to a cause.
Benefits of Cause-Related Marketing
As mentioned above, CRM is a unique tool for consolidating support for a cause. At the same time, it helps a business grow. This benefit that it provides a business pushes them to invest a healthy amount in the marketing efforts.
Non-profit organisations often find it hard to spend a lot of money on advertising or marketing. Therefore, this partnership enables them to gain visibility and reach the masses. While helping the NGOs, it is also beneficial to the businesses.
The ways in which CRM benefits businesses include fulfilling their corporate social responsibility, boosting the morale of their employees, improving their image in public, creating a unique image for the brand, etc.
Communities gain from cause-related marketing as well. A greater awareness creates opportunities for advancement. The campaign and its backing have significantly advanced social issues.
With the advantages, there are also some disadvantages of cause-related marketing. One of the biggest concerns is that it can badly affect the image of the NGO and the business. People might accuse the non-profit of engaging in commercialism.
At the same time, CRM may also be used as a tool to only benefit an organisation while ignoring the end result of the cause.
Cause-Related Marketing Examples
While there are many examples of Cause Related Marketing around the world, let us look at a few of them. One of the latest examples is Squarespace’s Act with Pride campaign.
Website host Squarespace made the decision to highlight LGBTQIA+ community members with motivational tales for Pride Month. The “#ActWithPride” campaign provided free Instagram Story Templates that users could download and use when creating stories. Following that, winners were highlighted on Squarespace’s Instagram profile page and story.
Another example is that of the Leftovers Challenge by Mythical Kitchen. Josh Scherer, a chef on YouTube, runs the Mythical Kitchen channel where he posts recipes for comfort cuisine. To launch the #LeftoversChallenge, he collaborated with a number of hosts from culinary channels, including Andrew Rea of Binging with Babish and Alvin Cailan of First We Feast.
The #LeftoversChallenge challenges participants to create original dishes using leftovers and post them on social media with the hashtag. To help restaurant employees if they lost their jobs, the organisers gave them 50% of the proceeds.
Additionally, 25% went to charitable organisations that support restaurant employees, and the final 25% went to low-interest loans for failing businesses.
Future of Cause-Related Marketing
As businesses grow, it becomes imperative that they help and support the communities they operate in. At the same time, we are seeing the world is getting smaller. Today, businesses cannot escape their corporate responsibility.
It matters how businesses choose to participate—or not. Consider Nike’s response to the Black Lives Matter movement as an illustration of how companies are utilising their platforms to engage on issues that have the greatest impact on their target audiences and communities.
Consumers are also more aware today as they wish to associate with the brands that work for the community as well. Therefore, we can expect that more and more businesses will indulge in Cause Related Marketing in the future.
The rise of big charities and successful mass campaigns is also emerging as a healthy trend. Large charities require a lot of funds to create impact at scale. This makes it crucial for them to parent with for-profits too. So, as we move forward, we can expect more creative and more impactful Cause Related Marketing campaigns in the future.
Smile Foundation and CRM
Smile Foundation is always looking for opportunities to collaborate with brands that share with us the ethos and values of child education and the holistic development of families. Learn more about the cause-related marketing partnerships of Smile Foundation here!
