A word cloud describing how CMF Corporate Members explain their role.

Many of us have learned the hard way that building a company/cause alliance on the strength of the relationship of just one corporate executive and one nonprofit representative is dangerous.

That's why Microsoft's Elisa Willman spends a huge chunk of her time "selling" her company's cause programs to her colleagues at the tech giant. In a March CMF webinar, Elisa shared strategies and tactics to gain support for cause initiatives within a corporation. Highlights include:  

Go All In - Before you sell a cause initiative internally, be certain you have both buy-in from your team as well as the bandwidth to tackle the initiative fully. Select only those campaigns you can commit to fully since future cause efforts depend upon your success.

Nurture Relationships - When approaching a pitch meeting with an unfamiliar team, reach out for an informal coffee with the team lead prior to your formal proposal. When it comes time for your pitch meeting, bring along existing internal champions (maybe from PR, events or social) to reinforce your message during your formal pitch.

Choose Your Audience Carefully - Certainly having audiences in common (e.g. youth) goes a long way toward aligning business and cause objectives, but also look for smaller or struggling parts of the business where cause could make the difference.

To learn more about corporate partnerships and meet Elisa and other top cause professionals, join us in Chicago on May 27 - 28 at the Cause Marketing Forum Conference.

Sincerely,