Zen and the art of cause-related marketing - Panel Discussion

Chief Executive, The, Oct, 1998 by J.P. Donlon

We're here as businessmen tonight. We're in a marketing game and you're in a marketing game. And you've got to be very careful with that game. I think we're on a cliff right now with the political situation. In the old days we used to take care of our own and that's coming back again. And you don't do it through the NFL.

Beene: For us the real value of the NFL is that they provide something we could never afford to purchase, which is $50 million to $60 million worth of advertising every year to get our story out. Part of that depends on our effectiveness in getting that story out. In fact, I just had a conversation with Spike Lee last week about the fact that it needs a new image.

Guffey: For years corporate America has been supporting United Way. It's an insult to me that you bring in the NFL and Spike Lee - what the hell has he done? Spike Lee will disappear tomorrow, and we'll be here forever. We're debating what's going to support nonprofits. It won't be Spike Lee, and it won't be the latest quarterbacks, believe me.

Beene: I believe that the important thing is to allow people to act on their philanthropic interests. The ability to democratize philanthropy is a great strength. Every year there are 28,000 new nonprofits born in the U.S. Today, there are 700,000 nonprofits in this country. So there are more and more nonprofits out there seeking these kinds of relationships with corporate America, and that calls on leaders of corporations to be more selective about partnerships.

There was a time when we used to say that corporate contributions came from money that was kept in a cigar drawer of the CEO. That's not the case anymore. Today, you're making sophisticated decisions about risking the thing you value the most - the brand of your company. So, due diligence is obviously called for.

Bersticker: That's the role that United Way plays. There's no way we can determine which of these so-called nonprofit organizations should merit our attention, so we depend on United Way to tell us that that money is going to a worthwhile cause.

Heitmann: Nobody else can help you make those choices, you have to do it yourself. We don't need any agency to tell us what we should and shouldn't do. That is a very personal decision of management.

Beene: With this proliferation, our friends on Wall Street tell us that we have to be able to do two things. We have to be able to honor the stock picker, the person who wants to direct gifts to a single cause, and through that screening process locally we really have to provide the mutual fund. There's a growing tendency to be overwhelmed by the amount of choices that face us.

John Vandewalle (Teva Marion Partners): We get together with a philanthropic organization we want to work with and ask them to show us their goals, mission, and values. We try to find a common ground and then we work out a plan to create a symbiotic relationship, because that's really what it is in the long term. We get together on a regular basis, review the plan, and say, "How are we measuring ourselves against each other?"