The nation's food banks are being hit hard on the demand and supply side, according to this front page article from the Wall Street Journal.

Demand has shot up as tough economic times and rapidly rising food prices make it tougher for more families to afford groceries. At the same time, government contributions of surplus commodities have fallen sharply (from $242 million four years ago to $58 million in 2007).

That has raised the importance of corporate alliances with anti-hunger groups. Nurturing those partnerships is the theme of a reception for CMF conference attendees on May 29 sponsored by America's Second Harvest, the nation's food bank network.

A front-page story in the May 5 issue of Advertising Age describes criticism that cause-related initiatives have yielded for Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

For example, Greenpeace ran a campaign attacking Unilever as contributing to the killing of orangutans because it buys palm oil produced on plantations that used to be rain forests. P&G's PUR clean water initiative has led bloggers to accuse it of hypocrisy because some of P&G operations negatively impact water quality.

Clearly, companies that create cause-related campaigns (and their nonprofit partners) must prepare to deal with extra scrutiny and activist attacks. If well conceived and executed, the benefits of cause- related initiatives should far outweigh the costs of dealing with cause-related criticism.

We're proud that Unilever's Stacie Bright will present Unilever's Dove Campaign for Real Beauty as the closing keynote presentation at the CMF Conference and look forward to her insights into this issue.