I attended a fund-raiser (they called it a “family funraiser”) yesterday for a wonderful organization called Children for Children. CFC is dedicated to inspiring and nurturing volunteerism in kids, instilling the habit of helping others into kids at an early age. If you happen to have a kid and live in Manhattan they also have an online directory of volunteer opportunities called Kids for Community that is very helpful. The event was at the Blue Smoke, a Danny Meyer restaurant which was especially appropriate since this place hosts a kids jazz program on the weekends (I haven’t it been there for that but I hear the kid performers are very talented-also, as a big fan of “barbecue” or what you northerners called “pulled pork” I can highly recommend their BBQ and hush puppies). At the event, over a hundred kids made scarves, holiday cards, dropped off books and quite painlessly became steeped in the notion of volunteerism. These kids were truly engaged and will likely be so for life.
During the event, I talked to a friend who is very involved in non-profits especially on the fund raising end. She told me the astonishing fact that there are about 27,000 non-profits in New York City alone. I struggled to wrap my mind around that fact but one thing was certain to me–those organizations that understood marketing were likely to be the ones that thrived. Those that didn’t would clearly suffer the consequences. It also occurred to me that there was a huge opportunity for New York-based companies to adopt one or more of these non-profits and engage in some Marketing for Good by providing deeply needed marketing support.
I will provide examples in future posts but feel free to let me know if you spot some Marketing for Good in action. I’m especially interested in success stories in which both the non-profit and the company benefited.