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IMAGE BUILDERS The third tier contains the most companies, and they number in the hundreds, and possibly thousands, of firms. This is the level of pure-cause marketing, where a company is apt to adopt a cause as a way to brighten its own corporate image. For example, insurance giant Prudential, battered by years of negative publicity surrounding its agents' sales practices, last year began sponsoring a national youth-volunteerism campaign. Spokesman Robert DeFillippo acknowledges that the campaign is helping rebuild Prudential's image. But "you can't tie them directly," he says. "We're 120 years old and have a long tradition of youth programs." Still, such image building invites the most criticism because it's seen as largely self-serving.
Purists fret that nonprofits are too eager to take easy money from corporations and that such handouts leave philanthropic groups vulnerable to a whimsical change of heart or a downturn in profits. Irving Warner, author of the book Art of Fund Raising, recently wrote that "the growth of joint-marketing ventures involving business and charities is a sign of real weakness in the fund-raising profession."
But there's probably nothing that Warner or anyone else can do about these trends. Strategic philanthropy and cause marketing are hot because they serve business well while raising billions of dollars for worthy causes. It's a classic win-win. A recent survey by Cone Communications and the Roper Group found that 76% of consumers would switch to a corporate brand or product that supports worthy causes, provided that the price and quality were on a par with other goods. That's up from 66% in a 1993 study.
It is surprising just how far things have come. We're well beyond such hucksterish practices as the renaming of San Francisco's Candlestick Park as 3Com Park and Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium as Cinergy Field after corporate sponsors. That's pure commercialism that helps pay for stratospheric ballplayer salaries and gives companies gigantic billboards. Backing social causes, on the other hand, moves corporations onto a moral plain. You may not like profit-minded ceos deciding which charities get all the loot. But in an era of shrinking government responsibility for the welfare of its citizens, somebody has to pick up the tab.
--With reporting by Bruce van Voorst/Washington