June 01, 2009
Annual Halo Awards Are Given to Cause Marketing Partnerships of Companies and Nonprofits
by Robert Kropp
The Cause Marketing Forum bestows its Golden Halo Awards upon Timberland and Share Our Strength for
their use of cause marketing to achieve socially beneficial ends.
SocialFunds.com --
Since 2002, the Cause Marketing
Forum has helped businesses and nonprofits collaborate in addressing important social issues,
by such initiatives as its Cause Marketing Halo Awards. The awards
are given to companies and nonprofits that demonstrate socially beneficial alliances between
companies and causes.
Cause marketing refers to marketing
campaigns that involve cooperation between businesses and nonprofit organizations, in the interest
of serving some public good. An early example of cause marketing can be found in the marketing
campaign led by American Express in 1983 for the Statue of Liberty Restoration project. In 2009,
cause marketing spending is forecast to reach $1.57 billion.
The Cause Marketing Forum
recognizes one business and one nonprofit organization every year for their cause marketing efforts
by bestowing upon them the Golden Halo Awards. In 2009, the winner in the business category was
Timberland, a new Hampshire-based footwear and apparel manufacturer. The winning nonprofit was Share Our Strength, a consortium of community
groups, activists and food programs engaged in the eradication of child hunger in the US.
The Cause Marketing Forum cited Timberland for its environmental goal of becoming
carbon-neutral by 2010, and for its policy of encouraging employee voluntarism by providing 40
hours of paid community service time per employee as well.
Share Our Strength was awarded
for its collaborations with the culinary industry to develop pioneering programs to help eradicate
child hunger. Since its founding by Bill and Debbie Shore in 1984, Share Our Strength has raised
more than $200 million and supported more than 1,000 organizations that are working to end hunger.
The Forum's award for Best Use of Social Media was given to TripAdvisor, a travel company
that invited consumers to vote on how it should allocate a $1 million donation between five
nonprofits. TripAdvisor's largest donation, of $392,000, went to Doctors Without Borders.
Other winners of the
Halo Awards included New Belgium Brewing for an environmental campaign, Subway for its partnership
with the American Heart Association, Procter & Gamble for its relationship with the United Nations
Association�s Hero campaign, and the collaboration between Macy�s and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The Cause Marketing Halo Award winners are selected from applications submitted by
companies and nonprofit organizations.
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SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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