Cause Talk Radio: The Cause Marketing Podcast

In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, we head north of the border to chat with some of our Canadian social impact colleagues from two incredibly prominent Canadian organizations: RBC and WE.RBC's Senior Director, Youth Strategy and Innovation, Mark Beckles and WE's Chief Development Officer for Partnerships, Erin Barton joins Megan to talk about a new initiative for their long-standing partnership called WE Are Social Entrepreneurs, focused on empowering young people to succeed in the evolving world of work and nurture an entrepreneurial spirit in young people.We discuss how the partners are bringing youth together in real life as well as virtually to teach them valuable skills, including coaching and mentorship, to help bring their ideas to life. RBC feels entrepreneurship is, and will continue to be, a critical part of Canada's economic prosperity and want to be at the forefront of helping nurture budding entrepreneurs.You won't believe some of the incredible ideas that 13-year-olds have come up with as part

In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan chats with regular monthly guest Joe Waters of SelfishGiving.com. They kick off the conversation of GivingTuesday highlights and what company efforts rose to the top this year and then transition to reviewing the top purpose trends of 2019 including climate change, CEO activism, plastics, youth and employee activism and more. And Megan crowns 2019 the "year of the round up". Tune in to hear why!Links & Notes Here's What Companies Are Doing This GivingTuesday A Year in Purpose: The Top 10 Trends of 2019 00:00 - The Joe Show 02:56 - Giving Tuesday 07:54 - Amazon 09:56 - The Year of the Round-up 14:50 - Sponsor: Audible 15:34 - 2019 Purpose Trends

It’s the holidays and in this episode of Cause Talk Radio Megan talks with Chad Royal Pascoe, National Vice President of Corporate and Cause Partnerships for The Boys and Girls Clubs of America about what their corporate partners are up to this holiday season.They discuss Giving Tuesday, how the holidays fits into their larger partnership picture and how BGCA can be a fit for a wide variety of companies.Chad even teases an exciting new initiative coming in early 2020 (you heard it here first, folks!).Links & Notes BGCA’s Corporate Partners Chad’s Webinar On Corporate Partnerships

Transgender and non-binary individuals often report being harassed, denied services or even being attacked when they show IDs with a name or gender that doesn’t match their presentation. And many forego the cost, complexity and anxiety associated with legal name and gender changes.When Mastercard learned about these challenges, they decided to do something about it.In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan speaks with Mastercard’s Executive Vice President for Marketing and Communications, Cheryl Guerin about their True Name feature that allows transgender and non-binary individuals to allow their true names to appear on their Mastercard without the requirement of a legal name change.The first True Name cards are just rolling out this month and Cheryl and Megan talk about everything from how this initiative began to the responsibility brands have to the LGBTQIA community year-round, and not just during pride month.Links & NotesMastercard’s Acceptance Matters Page

It’s Giving Tuesday and in this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan talks to Oktay Dogramaci, Global Head of Cause-Related Solutions for PayPal about their GivingTuesday activations and how PayPal powers giving on this day and beyond.Last year on GivingTuesday PayPal customers in 180 countries donated nearly $98 million to charitable causes!Oktay and Megan chat about the growth of GivingTuesday since its inception 8 years ago,geek out over PayPal’s vast data and giving trends and even get some predictions from Oktay about where he thinks giving is headed in 2020.Links & Notes PayPal’s GivingTuesday efforts Oktay on Twitter

TeamTrees is an influencer-driven fundraising initiative that started when the community of a 21-year-old YouTuber named MrBeast challenged him to plant 20 million trees to commemorate hitting 20 million subscribers. In partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation MrBeast, along with 600 other YouTubers as well as CEOs like Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and Marc Benioff started the #TeamTrees campaign that has raised enough money to plant 16 million trees (and still counting!).In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan talks to Dan Lambe, President of The Arbor Day Foundation about this incredible initiative and how they plan to capitalize on it moving forward.Links & Notes TeamTrees Arbor Day Foundation

In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan chats with regular monthly guest Joe Waters of SelfishGiving.com.This episode spans all sorts of social impact topics, from Joe’s recent webinar on influencers in social impact and what he learned to #TeamTrees with YouTuber MrBeast and how The Arbor Day Foundation ran with what started out as an internet challenge.Megan and Joe debrief on Veterans Day cause campaigns that caught their attention and why, including Call of Duty Endowment’s #HireHonor campaign, Macy’s Salutes Those Who Serve, KIND Heroes Bars, Dunkin’ Donuts and A Million Thanks and The Royal Canadian Legion’s special challenge to gamers that play war-related games.Megan issues a special challenge to Joe to come up with a cause marketing promotion around the “Ok, Boomer” meme and Joe delivers!Last, but not least, Megan and Joe start what will become a larger discussion of sustainable practices in cause marketing and social impact and discuss a few current practices that may not be as “green” as they c

Point of sale fundraising is one of the most effective ways for charities to raise money from consumers in a retail environment and one of the leaders in this space is Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, which has raised $6.9 BILLION for its 170 partner children’s hospitals around the country since 1983.In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, I talk with Clark Sweat, Chief Revenue Officer and Julie Breckenkamp, Managing Director of Corporate Partnerships with Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and hear how round-up campaigns are gaining traction with their corporate partners like Casey’s General Stores and ACE Hardware, how partners like Panda Express are engaging their employees in donation efforts, how their corporate partners are starting to integrate charitable asks into their apps and what trends they’re watching in 2020 and beyond.Links & Notes CMN Corporate Partner Webpage Clark on LinkedIn Julie on LinkedIn

For 43 years, Macy’s has hosted the nation’s largest Fourth of July celebration in New York City. This year, they launched more than 70,000 shells over the Brooklyn Bridge. But Macy’s support of military families, veterans and active duty military extends far beyond fireworks.This past July, Macy’s launched the second year of a cause marketing campaign called “Macy’s Salutes Those Who Serve” in which they partnered with Bunker Labs and Blue Star Families and invited consumers to round up to the nearest dollar upon checkout as a donation to support those charities. The campaign raised $1.2 million for military veterans and their families - not bad for collecting spare change!One thing I find fascinating about this partnership is the charities Macy’s has chosen to support: Bunker Labs helps veteran entrepreneurs start their own business and Blue Star Families builds communities that support military families with career development tools, local community events for families, and caregiver support.In this episod

In March, The Walt Disney Company announced an initiative that will dedicate more than $100 million over a 5-year period in company resources, including cash, products and services, to reinvent the patient and family experience in children’s hospitals across the globe as part of their 'Team of Heroes' social impact program.In this episode of CauseTalk Radio, Megan has a conversation with Elissa Margolis, SVP, Enterprise Social Responsibility for The Walt Disney Company about this massive initiative, how and why they decided to focus their resources in this way and some of the cool technologies they're bringing to Children's Hospitals that includes interactive murals (some are 40 feet long!), RFID technology that allows patients to choose the characters they experience in their hospital journey and special windows that provide a view into Disney content.Links & Notes Disney Team of Heroes Release Disney Team of Heroes Home

In this episode of CauseTalk Radio, Megan and Joe discuss all sorts of social impact, top-of-mind happenings including: A cautionary tale of how Carson King inadvertently turned Venmo into a massive fundraising platform for a children’s hospital and grabbed brand love (then hate) along the way from Busch Lite. How charities have a love/hate relationship with GoFundMe and how some have even turned the platform into a springboard into the creation of a brand new charity (albeit one that’s building a wall along the U.S./Mexico border). How consumers are turning to activism in the face of government inaction and mistrust and how brands like Levi’s and DICK’s Sporting Goods want a piece of that pie. A new study that debates whether it’s best to share facts or stories to convey an important message Much more! Links & Notes How Busch Lite’s Donation To Children’s Hospital Took The Wrong Turn When GoFundMe Gets Ugly (The Atlantic) Kellogg Research: Facts vs. Storytelling CEO Letter On Gun Control 00:21 - Suppo

One in five children lives with a significantly impairing mental illness and suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-25 year olds. Because kids don’t wear their thoughts on their sleeves, we don’t know what they might be going through.Almost a year ago on World Mental Health day, Nationwide Children’s Hospital launched a movement called ‘On Our Sleeves’ with a promise of advocacy, education and fundraising for this critical pediatric mental health crisis. One important supporter of this movement is the corporate community including partners like Justice, 31 Gifts Big Lots and Nationwide.In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan talks with Karri Schildmeyer, Senior Director of Corporate Alliance Marketing for Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Niki Shafer, Senior VP of Outreach for the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Foundation about this important issue of children’s mental health and what they’ve learned in year one of the ‘On Our Sleeves’ initiative.Links & Notes On Our Sleeves Website Sup

In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan and Joe chat with Tony Hollingsworth, legendary producer behind some of the most historic global issue campaigns like "Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute' and 'The Wall - Live in Berlin'.Tony is back with plans to launch a massive, global campaign in 2020 called The Listen Campaign to bring attention, awareness and funds to the one billion vulnerable and disadvantaged children around the globe. Tony tells us the story behind this campaign, where did this idea came from and why he's so passionate about it. We learn why Tony decided to go global with this initiative, why this campaign is different than what we see in market today from development agencies and how brands and companies will be involved.We dig into the concept of the "white savior complex" and how, even though this initiative does include well-known celebrities, the focus remains on the children themselves.Links & NotesThe Listen Campaign

Today Joe and Megan chat with Kris Bahner, Senior Vice President of Global Corporate Affairs with Kellogg about their new Rice Krispies Treats Sensory Love Notes campaign in partnership with nonprofit Autism Speaks*.Several years ago, Rice Krispies Treats first developed writable wrappers on 2017 where parents could write encouraging notes directly on the packages of Rice Krispies Treats to put in kids’ lunchboxes. In 2018, Kellogg partnered with the National Federation of the Blind to create braille stickers for Rice Krispies Treats as well as recordable audioboxes to convey messages to those that were low- or no vision.Those braille love notes were so well received, the brand opted to expand the campaign to make it even more inclusive. This year they established a partnership with Autism Speaks to create sensory love notes, which are stickers made of different materials like fleece, satin or velour and provide a tactile experience to kids with sensory issues.As a mom of a child with autism, Kris has a profe

In this episode of Cause Talk Radio, Megan and Joe chat with Icema Gibbs, JetBlue’s VP of CSR about the airline’s robust corporate disaster giving history and ongoing initiatives. We also dive into lessons learned from the catastrophic 2017 hurricane season (one of the worst on record) in which JetBlue played a special role. On the show Joe, Megan and Icema discuss: JetBlue’s top priorities after a disaster event: crew members, customers and community. The many activations JetBlue had in the wake of the 2017 hurricane season with a special focus on Puerto Rico Why it’s critical for companies to contribute in ways that leverage their internal assets The importance of assessing local need and how hard it can be to balance a quick and appropriate response The different phases of disaster recovery and the importance of empowering a local community to get back on its feet Why more collaboration between companies is critical in a disaster and the steps JetBlue has taken to form tighter alliances What JetBlue looks

Today on Cause Talk Radio, Megan and I talk to ... each other! We share our plans for Cause Talk Radio. (Don't worry! We'll be back.) In other news, Megan and I also share our favorite shows of 2018. What's our big news? Which shows did we choose? Well, you'll just have to listen to find out!

Today on Cause Talk Radio, Megan and Joe talk to Ryan Baillargeon, CEO of Toronto-based Grassriots about the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and why nonprofits should be paying attention to it. Links & Notes Grassriots

Today on Cause Talk Radio, Megan and Joe talk to Chris Jarvis, Partner at Realized Worth and Executive Director of the RW Institute about a recent episode of the Freakonomics podcast entitled “Does Doing Good Give You License to be Bad?” The show makes some pretty serious claims about CSR programs that we examine and debunk! Links & Notes RealizedWorth RW Institute RW Institute on Twitter

Today on Cause Talk Radio, Megan and Joe talk to Kate Hayes, Director of Direct Impact for Echoing Green about their unique efforts to spot emerging mid-career business leaders and invest deeply in their success to accelerate their impact in the social sector. On the show, Megan, Kate, and Joe discuss: What is Echoing Green and the Direct Impact program?  What’s the profile of a typical participant? Is the focus exclusively on nonprofit boards? How do you work with nonprofits to help them better utilize corporate board members? How can an individual who works at a corporation make a social impact while staying at their job? From the nonprofit perspective, why is it so important to have corporate leaders engaged in their work? How can an individual in the corporate sector prepare to engage meaningfully in the nonprofit sector? Where does a corporate professional go to find an opportunity to become a volunteer? What are actionable steps anyone listening can take right now to understand how to make a social imp

Today on Cause Talk Radio, Megan and Joe talk to Mike Esposito, Director of U.S. Marketing at household cleaning tools brand O-Cedar about their involvement in Habitat for Humanity's Home is the Key cause marketing initiative that's now in its second year. Links & Notes O-Cedar's Community Page Habitat's Home is the Key