Partnering or Going Direct

Once a business has identified a cause that resonates with its brand and consumers, it must decide whether to create its own program to fight the problem or partner with an existing nonprofit organization. The authors of “Brand Spirit” point out some of the benefits and challenges of these two approaches:

Direct Approach:

• Principle Benefits: Greater clarity in marketing communications and simpler decisionmaking than when a partner is involved.
• Principle Challenges: Financial and staff resources to needed to create and build awareness of and credibility for new programs.

Partnering Approach:

• Principle Benefits: Borrowed credibility and emotional bond with consumers, leveragable communication programs (e.g. volunteer network) and an existing infrastructure to attack “the problem”
• Principle Challenges: More complex marketing communications due to involvement of two organizations, need to obtain approvals from nonprofit partner.