Good environmental communications helps organizations raise money from business partners

Here’s a “vote for your favorite cause” type of business fundraising effort. In this case, 21 water groups are competing to win $10,000 in cash from the New Belgium Brewery. This kind of fundraising activity has become a mainstay of the business/charity relationship because businesses know exactly how much public recognition they get for their generosity. If you haven’t competed in one of these things already, you might ought to start planning for the day when you will.

I’m of two minds about it.

On one hand, I think aspects of this are a healthy exercise for charities. Knowing that these opportunities are out could be a powerful incentive for you to build up your roster of Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and email subscribers, even though they are unlikely to make donation directly. It’s an easy opportunity to produce communications that begin with behavior (click here, vote, then tell your friends), give supporters an opportunity to make a big difference (how many of them could afford to give $10,000?) and do some recruiting on your behalf. Plus it’s kinda fun for everybody involved.

Here’s the downside, though — with 21 groups competing, the odds are kind of steep! Groups that have their online act together can compete for these funds relatively easily. But if you’re not ready before the contest starts, you’ll have a hard time getting ready once the competition is underway. Also, it seems that some of these competitions pit local and statewide groups against big national ones, and I’m just not sure if that’s fair. You may want to look at who else is competing before you throw a bunch of time and effort into one of these.

One of my clients actually won one of these things, and is now using the money to evaluate mercury levels in fish in their local river. Anybody else out there have some experience with this that you can share?

P.S. – in the New Belgium Brewery competition featured above, I voted for River Network, even though I would have happily voted for anybody else competing. Why? Because they asked me to.

P.P.S — New Belgium Brewery makes Fat Tire Ale. Yummy!

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