Benevity Social Ventures and Obopay recently launched a text-to-donate service that aims to simplify and incentivize mobile giving. Software company Benevity (I’ve profiled iStock Photo’s use of the Benevity platform to power micro-donations) partnered with mobile payment provider Obopay to create a service with enough incentives that it might create the tipping point.

Here’s the potential for companies:

• It can easily be integrated into a cause marketing or loyalty campaign. When deciding between Prego and Ragu, I can follow a prompt on Prego’s label that encourages me to make a donation (then share it on social media) and then offers me a coupon or product incentive.
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• It enables companies and nonprofits to partner on full-feature campaigns that go beyond a mobile-only component because it integrates with Benevity’s suite of services that support mico-donations, employee giving and cause-related campaigns. A typical challenge of mobile fundraising is that it’s offered as a stand-alone program, which limits its appeal to consumers, as well as companies and nonprofits.
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• Companies can create a branded portfolio of causes, grouped by locality or issue (e.g., a FedEx portfolio of Memphis-based charities or a national portfolio of youth literacy organizations).
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• It provides branded tax receipts. After a user gives, she receives a tax receipt referencing the company associated with the campaign, which gives the company greater visibility for its initiatives. When Prego or FedEx offers me a meaningful opportunity to engage with and support a cause and then sends me a receipt with their name on it, it’s one more point of (positive) brand interaction.
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• Companies can match donated funds, which incentivizes consumer giving and bolsters the philanthropic (and branded) impact of a company’s giving. It also makes it worthwhile for nonprofits to direct donors to partner retailers, since these retailers can easily match a donation.
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• Companies can partner with any registered nonprofit, regardless of size. The service doesn’t require formal on-boarding for nonprofits and doesn’t exclude small-shop charities.

For consumers, many of whom want ways to engage a cause beyond a traditional cause marketing point-of-purchase donation, it’s an easy and immediate way to directly support an issue and to track giving impact. Companies can also track, and then reward, consumers’ donations through the company’s portfolio of causes.

Many of the incentives the text-to-donate service offers companies double as consumer/donor incentives: matching donations, convenience and more immediate impact (unlike existing mobile donation services, the donor doesn’t have to receive and pay her phone bill to trigger the fund transfer).

Benevity and Obopay’s service is hitting the sweet spot of mobile commerce, mobile marketing and cause marketing, a place where Foursquare and other geo-location programs have visited, but haven’t fully yet claimed.

But how do you do cause-related marketing (or cause branding) right?

1. Pick a cause you care about.
   Crowdsourced charity had its pop–and then fizzle. Sixty-one percent of consumers say they’d prefer to see a company make a long-term commitment to an issue rather than having the chance to vote for the cause they think the company should support in the short run.
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2. Invest in a cause long-term.
   Crowdourced campaigns in which entrants vy for votes through social media can build site traffic and brand awareness–momentarily.  ”After one year, or five or 10, [these type of campaigns] won’t have clearly defined what the company stands for,” says Alison DaSilva, Executive Vice President at Cone. Consumer-driven, short-term campaigns also make it much harder for a company to measure its social impact.
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3. Involve employees.
   This is a two-for-one. Employees who’re involved in their company’s social or environmental commitments feel more pride and loyalty toward their employer.  Per Cone, 93% of engaged employees say they’re proud of their company’s values (vs. 68% of employees who don’t take part in social or environmental activities).  This 93% of employees who take pride in their company and work translates directly–and tremendously–to customer satisfaction and profitability (Zappos.com and Southwest Airlines are poster children for the theory of Happy Employees Drives Company Success).
   

   On the flip side, employees often bring their passion and knowledge of the company’s sustainability efforts to their interactions with consumers, which can be critical in the success or failure of your company’s specific campaign and larger efforts. Seventy percent of consumers say an informed employee would likely drive their purchase or donation. At the very least, employees greatly influence a campaign’s message and company intent.  As I wrote about here, Ikea charges customers for bags. Asking a customer who’s just spent money in your store to pay for the packaging to cart it away is a delicate request, which is left to the cashier to make.  By training its employees in overall company sustainability goals and illustrating how charging for bags supports these goals, Ikea impassioned (or at least educated) its employees around this transaction.  A reader’s comment on his bag-buying experience sharpens the point:

When the Ikea cashier told me about their bag policy she was beaming with pride. It was pretty much the only time I saw any Ikea worker happy. I think policies like this give people in the company a reason to care.

4. Involve Consumers.
   While  consumers still want to support your company’s cause through transactional purchases (81%) they also want opportunities to volunteer for the cause (72%) and to provide feedback on the product or campaign (75%).  TOMS Shoes is known for its transaction-focused buy-one-give-one model.  But the company has also done an excellent job of providing customers opportunities to act, e.g., through Style Your Sole shoe painting parties and a “One Day Without Shoes” event that mobilized thousands of students to go barefoot for the day.

Thanks to Cone Inc. for another set of valuable data points.

In a campaign aimed at promoting “healthy, active lifestyles for kids,” why is KaBOOM! partnering with an historic obesity perpetrator for a campaign aimed at promoting “healthy, active lifestyles for kids?”  It’s a model case of brand misalignment.

With today’s children anticipated to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents (due to obesity and obesity-related conditions like diabetes), obesity is no longer child’s play. Why hasn’t the public condemned this partnership as it did Susan G. Komen’s campaign with KFC?

As I read over different press releases and articles that talked about the campaign, I jotted down its flaws.

Flaw #1
In addition to brand misalignment, this pairing lowers the ethical bar for partnerships between nonprofits and brands. What’s next, the Sierra Club promoting Clorox?

Flaw #2
Amidst vending machines that now dispense carrots and the First Lady’s efforts to curb child obesity, isn’t the connection between play and Kool-Aid a dangerous one to make–particularly for this generation?  The press release on KaBOOM!’s website doesn’t shirk the sugar, describing Kool-Aid as “the iconic soft drink that has stood for fun and refreshment…”  How do you reconcile We’re endorsing something sweet and sugary, but we care about your children’s health?

Flaw #3 The campaign announcement came directly from Kool-Aid’s senior brand manager.  I realize it’s a brand play for a new Kool-Aid product line, but there’s an ethical responsibility inherent in youth marketing that I wish both Kool-Aid and KaBOOM! had taken more seriously.

Red Flag #4 Soul-selling and cavities for a gift of just 44 playgrounds? Surely KaBOOM! can attract other partners to fund 44 playgrounds.  Not incidentally, KaBOOM! is one of my favorite nonprofits for the way it operates. Founder Darell Hammond runs it very much as a for-profit entity, which has contributed to its bonanza growth.

But then I thought past my initial finger wagging. What’s the possible flip side?

Flip Side #1 The average KaBOOM! playground costs $97,500.  At 44 playgrounds, that’s about a $4.3 million investment.

Flip Side #2 Kool-Aid’s playground pledge is tied to its launch of several new, lower-calorie, vitamin-enriched and sugar-free products. Still chemically, still fake, I know, but not everyone can pony up for Naked Juice or Honest Tea or reach for.  By offering products to lower-income families that are less detrimental, is Kool-Aid doing a public service?

This isn’t the first time the ethics of business, marketing and cause-related programs have been argued.  And the partnership still leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth, but it’s worth reaching beyond any initial reaction formed by personal life experiences to understand the campaign’s potential positive impacts on a different set of life experiences.

I took the time to dig deeper into it because I was curious about KaBOOM!’s motivation and (as I see it) responsibility to uphold some ethical standard. But I wouldn’t have regularly.  Yet despite my calculations of playground costs and re-adjusted socio-economic bias, I still find the campaign harmful, falsely congratulatory and inauthentic. But it was a conclusion worth the extra time it took to form.

Less than one percent of people (surveyed recently by BBMG in partnership with B Lab) trust company advertisements or statements made on packaging when trying to determine if a product or company is doing what it says. Given the thought, perception and dollars that companies put into product packaging, it’s an alarming statistic.

So what’s the answer? More product certifications or stricter product standards? B Corporation points to the company–not the product–as the standard of truth.

Let’s take for example Method’s Squeaky Green laundry detergent and Clorox’s Green Works’ Naturally Derived detergent. The difference between the two detergents (both are plant-based, biodegradable and safe to use around kids and food) is the company behind each product. Only one has built a business (and all its products) around sustainability–positive employee relations, harmless cleaners and concern for the environment.

Through an upcoming ad campaign, B Lab (the organization which certifies B Corporations) hopes to help consumers differentiate between products that appear to be comparable, but which aren’t when you “widen the aperture on the lens to look at all the elements that make up a company’s sustainability [not just the merits of one product],” says Jay Coen Gilbert, a co-founder of B Lab.

To earn certification as a B Corporation (B meaning Beneficial), companies must meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards. At first glance, the significance of this can be easily lost on consumers bombarded with product certifications like Fair Trade, Organic or LEED-Certified.

The critical distinction (and potential eliminator of cause-washing) is that B Corp certification isn’t a product-based claim, it’s a company-based stamp of responsibility, which guarantees not just that producers are paid fair wages, but that the company operates ethically, transparently and responsibly.

If B Lab and its B Corps–beginning with the upcoming ad campaign–can make it easy for consumers to identify and evaluate truly responsible companies (which no doubt requires some training and education) then future KFC-Susan G. Komen and BP cause-appearing campaigns don’t have a chance of succeeding.

The ad campaign is set to reach 17M individuals starting in November.  ”Our long-term objective has always been to make it easy for consumers to identify and support good companies,” says Coen Gilbert.  With the B Corp certification reaching a critical mass (there are more than 320 B Corps across 60 industries), the timing is right to begin engaging consumers.

“I feel like we’re swimming downstream. Consumers are tired of green-washing.  More than 90% of consumers who viewed the ads say they’ll look out for the B Corps featured in the campaign next time they go shopping,” says Coen Gilbert.

Green Mountain Coffee is staring into the face of this question now with criticism of its environmentally noxious single-use coffee pods that work with its Keurig brewing system.  Last year, more than 80% of Green Mountain’s $803 million in sales came from the nonrecyclable, nonbiodegradable coffee pods.  A New York Times article says this year the company “expects to sell nearly three billion K-Cups, the plastic and tinfoil pods that are made to be thrown away — filter, grounds and all — after one use.”

Since its founding in 1981, Green Mountain Coffee has practiced progressive sustainability. It offsets 100% of direct greenhouse gas emissions, contributes 5% of pre-tax profits to nonprofits, runs a biodiesel fueling station and developed a hot-beverage cup with a compostable lining. I regret that I didn’t cover this when I interviewed Mike Dupee, Green Mountain Coffee’s vice president of CSR because I think he would have given it a fair shake.

This brings up several questions:

1. Does this discount Green Mountain Coffee’s other sustainability initiatives?
2. What’s the proportion of impact to image?
3. How should Green Mountain Coffee handle this?
4. How does brand acquisition impact the parent brand’s sustainability image?

• Does this discount Green Mountain Coffee’s other sustainability initiatives?
  Not at all. $2 million in support of supply-chain communities is still $2 million. But, conversely, the company’s history of social good doesn’t neutralize the environmental cost of its products. There isn’t a sustainability ledger that balances good actions against bad.
• What’s the proportion of impact to image?
  This is the ever-delicate balance of impact to image of impact. I argued that Microsoft’s and CVS’ social impacts outweigh the public’s perception of them. But more frequently, brands have a disproportionate focus on image over impact. Reputation is a benefit of corporate social responsibility, but it’s also an objective. Green Mountain Coffee’s sum image as a sustainable company is up for grabs because its sum impact is tilting toward the negative. So, while there’s not a Sustainability Ledger, there is an Image Ledger where good cancels bad and bad cancels good.
• How should Green Mountain Coffee handle this?
  Transparency and communication should come before the solution. Green Mountain Coffee should claim the problem rather than arguing that the K-Cups have an environmental benefit. The company’s chief executive Lawrence Blanford says brewing one cup at a time means less wasted coffee at the bottom of the pot, which reduces the overall environmental impact per cup of coffee.

  By claiming the issue and working publicly toward a solution, the company can take a leadership role in waste reduction against its single-use-coffee competitors and reclaim its identity as an environmentally aware–if not environmentally friendly–brand. One heretical suggestion is to educate consumers on the issue and poll their willingness to pay more for biodegradable packaging, switch to reusable coffee filters or recycle the pods through pre-paid mailers.
  
  So far, Green Mountain Coffee is prototyping a pod made without plastic and aluminum foil and conducting a life-cycle analysis to understand the environmental cost of the pods. The analysis should be used to drive viable solutions rather than to downplay the K-Cups’ environmental cost.  If Green Mountain Coffee uses the analysis to vindicate environmental claims rather than to guide sustainability, it loses. Levi’s is a good example of what to do. When a life-cycle analysis identified consumer behavior (washing and drying the denim) as the highest environmental cost, Levi’s didn’t smirk and say, “Whew, not our problem.” Instead, it launched Care to Air, an awareness campaign and contest to shift consumer behavior in favor of the environment.

• How does brand acquisition impact the parent brand’s sustainability image?
  Green Mountain Coffee pulled a reverse Coke-acquires-Honest Tea-to-polish-its-image when it purchased Keurig in 1996. I’m going to leave this topic for another post, but it’s an unexpected example of how brand acquisition significantly impacts the parent company’s sustainability image.

Green Mountain Coffee is still a progressive company that other companies can learn from, but it’s facing a serious challenge as it grapples with how to lower or neutralize the environmental cost of its biggest revenue generator. We can learn a lot from what happens next–let’s just hope it’s a story of What To Do Right.