When I talk to clients, one of the first questions I get is, "How much money are we going to have to give?" They are often absolutely shocked when I say "$0.00 is okay".
How can we be a Force for Good if we don't contribute cash? Let me answer that with an anecdote that puts it into perspective.
If you and I were hanging around the water cooler on Monday and you told me, "This weekend I donated $2,000 to cancer research", I'd be very happy to hear that. However, I'd have a difficult time quantifying that to my own life. I don't know if you have $10 million in the bank (in which case $2,000 isn't going to change much in your finances). Or if you ONLY had $2,000 and you just donated the entire sum of your savings.
But if you told me, "I spent this weekend talking to people battling cancer and their families in trying to provide just a little hope." I'd be blown away. I CAN RELATE to time, because we all have the same amount of it.
Once you understand that it's not necessarily about donations, then your world can open up to an entirely new set of possibilities. Your goal is to improve the situation and there's many ways to do that. Yes, if you have the cash available, then I encourage that you donate. But I don't want you to believe that your time is a silver medal, it is in fact more important!
So the next question is, "How much time do we have to spend?" The answer is, "When you're satisfied with the state of the situation". It takes the time it takes. However, the key is to raise public awareness. Addressing a problem presupposes that people understand the problem and the easy way in which they can contribute.
So why is "Giving Back" always integrated into wealth development strategies? It's the "Why". If the end game is money, when times are tough you will quit. But if the ultimate goal is to do something meaningful, make an impact, "do good", then you will be more likely to "stay the course". We need a purpose bigger than ourselves to drive us when times become invariably difficult.
Cause Marketing is designed to leverage your existing marketing spend to achieve results on multiple fronts:
Raise Awareness for a problem that must be remedied
Connect your company brand to an important purpose
Develop Trust and Loyalty with your target market
Create excitement and camaraderie among employees
Provide your company license to "Play by a different set of rules"
Brandon Bain is the founder BeCause Marketing, a company with a mission to help small & medium-sized businesses develop powerful cause-based marketing strategies. Brandon believes his calling is to aggregate like-minded companies to become an accelerator of goodness.
Married for 8 years to his wife Traci, Brandon is a proud father of 3: A 6-yr old boy and twin 2 yr old girls. Brandon is a notorious "dad-joke-teller" and once quipped, "I'm not going swimming, these are board shorts. I wear 'em when I'm bored."