In my work with clients ranging from Product (RED) to the Marion Institute, every day my colleagues and I try to help our clients with their core missions, from raising money to help fight AIDS in Africa, to bringing traditional arts back to Cambodia – one of the many projects of the Marion Institute.
We use Google Grants, new media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, we create specialized programs around major events such as World AIDS Day, we assist with website development, convert traffic to email addresses and do everything we can to help our partners succeed.
With so much to do in the world, it is a constant battle to try and help, save, support, fight and protect both our fellow man but the world around us. Our current agency sprung out of my experience as a Senior Advisor to John Kerry in 2004, the subsequent launch of the Huffington Post and my realization that we could take these emerging tools and technologies and help non-profits message, build support and raise money.
While we have had success, over $150 million generated by (RED) for The Global Fund, the (RED) experience contrasted with our efforts on other clients has led me to conclude that the non-profit model needs a stronger and much greater infuse of creative capitalism to succeed with thier missions. One moment last fall crystalized this in my mind.
A client of ours, Human Rights First, was intent on using the wacko pastor’s attempt to burn a Koran on September 11th, to gather attention to the issue of free speech in America and work against the anti-Muslim current that exists in the country today. We came up with what we thought was a pretty fun way to do so – we created a bookmark that said "AMERICANS DON’T BURN BOOKS."
We worked with HRF to make sure that the bookmarks were free; we just wanted to distribute them and yes, collect email addresses but we were fairly certain that we would have pretty strong success especially given the underlying narrative of how much coverage the story was getting; a strong base of support from HRF members and much more.
We barely gave any away.
I have had similar experiences trying to get people to offset a ton of carbon for the princely price of $7 (again, we had a nice concept in January of "LOSE A TON") or donate a brick for $4 to help build a community center centered around Mother’s Day (What She Really Wants. A Brick.)
Time and time again using the tools available to us, we are going out and see there just is tremendous resistance to supporting charitable causes in either a direct (email, direct mail piece) or indirect way. The path seems to me to be getting harder; the returns less.
At the same time, (RED) has shown a different way, with stronger results. (RED) is not a charity but a creative capitalism model where you buy a (RED) product for the same price as a non-(RED) product, such as an iPod, and a donation is made to The Global Fund. This has been a great success. But still on one level it relies on the conscious consumer.
Far greater, and far more needed, are programs and products and models which tap into the unconscious consumer. The person who is, like all people really, looking out for themselves. The person who will buy the product because they want it, because it’s a great deal and if it has a benefit attached to it, so be it.
The benefit can not be the driver anymore. The world has too many needs. Core economic forces are too powerful to ignore. We need to start putting the world’s greatest economic power, the consumer and to be more specific, the American consumer, to work solving the great problems of the world.
Anything short of this will lead to greater needs at the same time we are less suited to meet those needs.
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