I’m not the first to make the case that crowdsourced social good contests should retreat quickly into the night.

• They’re inefficient at creating change;
• Their current popularity has diminished the value they bring to companies and brands;
• Consumers are fed up with them (how many vote-for-me solicitations do you get a week that make you feel more like a brand pusher than a change agent?); and
• For the money and hoopla they involve, they should accomplish more than marketing the company and channeling money to (often unvetted and under-qualified) projects.

Whether you agree or not, the next question is, What’s the alternative?

First, it’s helpful to understand what these contests do offer. They’re big and loud. They attract participants, voters, supporters, media and millions of tweets, blogs and Facebook likes. Through this lens, they do provide bang for their buck.  And they only require what many companies excel at–assembling the resources to design and run a colorful marketing campaign and to write checks to the winners. Deep-root partnerships, familiarization with target communities and evaluation and reporting on the awarded funds aren’t required.

So the new question becomes What’s an alternative that can offer companies the same level of virality and visibility without skimping on substance?

Looking for an alternative campaign format is too myopic. Instead, companies should look at a broader level of engagement that supports social responsibility as a business (not just a marketing) strategy.  Admittedly, this sounds obvious, but how can companies do this and still get their marketing kick?

I suggest that companies focus on developing long-term partnership that support a social enterprise abroad. Transferring energies from internal competitions to external investments* allows companies to explore and develop for new markets (BoP populations offer significant market opportunities), test new products, improve resource efficiency and ensure ethical supply lines.  Even thought these partnerships take place outside of the United States, companies still have ample opportunity to relay their work with these communities to American consumers.

P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water program, led by P&G employee Dr. Greg Allgood, is a strong example of a corporate initiative focused on external impact that’s successfully connected American consumers to its work in developing communities. An education portal and upcoming social media campaign to fund clean drinking water for its partner communities and veteran organizations tackling this cause are two storytelling mechanisms.

*This post is the current culmination of several conversations I’ve had with leaders in social enterprise and CSR over the past few weeks, as well as Tim Ogden’s evocative article, in which he talks about external investment vs. internal competitions.

What do you think? Maybe I’m biting off something too big to chew, but there’s something bigger and better than crowdsourced contests that needs to be wrestled down.

Your next pair of Levi’s might come with a clothesline or shoebox-sized dryer.  After a recent lifecycle assessment, Levi’s realized that 60% of the climate impact of a pair of jeans comes after the jeans are made and sold; nearly 80% of this is from drying the jeans in a dryer.  The presumed and easy response to this would be for Levi’s to say, “Not our problem. We abide by fair labor practices, use recycled and organic fibers and run fuel efficient trucks to transport our jeans. What happens after we sell them has nothing to do with us.”

But Levi’s didn’t.  Instead, it launched Care to Air, an awareness campaign and contest to shift consumer behavior in favor of the environment.  In partnershihp with Myoo Create, Levi’s will award $10,000 for the world’s most innovative, covetable, and sustainable air-drying solution for clothing.  This isn’t a money maker for Levi’s.  You don’t have to buy jeans, or even own Levi’s products, for the campaign to be a success.  And since Levi’s has chosen the environment-at-large as a beneficiary, it doesn’t get to leverage the credibility or press that a nonprofit partner would bring to bear.

So why do it?  Is it just about being viwed as a socially compassionate brand?  That’s part of it–and it’s not taboo because the Levi’s actions consistently reflect a commitment (rather than lip-service) to sustainability.  Part of a company’s responsibility (I know, I task them with a lot) is to educate and involve its consumers in making more responsible choices and to pressure their competitors to raise their responsibility game.  Influencing consumer behavior also happens to be one of Levi’s commitments: “To reach far beyond the boundaries of our company to influence not only what people wear but the way people think and act.”

This is exactly what Levi’s is doing with Care to Air, and it’s brilliant because as much as you register the brand behind this campaign, it isn’t about the brand at all.  It’s about what I do with my clothes at home and how I understand this to affect the environment.

This point is often overlooked.  Your do-gooding and good deeding aren’t a substitute for marketing.  Customers can’t love you for what you do if they don’t know you.  At this point you might be thinking:

But Wait!  One of the benefits of a social mission is the visibility it brings to my company.  I’ve even heard–from this very site–that social responsiblity programs can be funded with the marketing budget because they’ll bring publicity.

The whole truth is that a social mission helps, but doesn’t cover it. Even Stonyfield Farm, a virtuoso of guerilla marketing tactics, put effort into its marketing to build its brand 17 years ago.  Here are some ideas you can use to brand your company without robbing your social programs.

Put a face on it
Choose a spokesperson from your company who cultivates his or her expertise in the field.  World of Good did this well. Co-founder Priya Haji speaks* on social enterprise and fair trade and has become the public face of the company.  Zappos’ Tony Hsieh is another great example; while turning Zappos into a marvelous company, Tony talked about how he was doing it, creating an ethos around Zappos that MBA students, employees and customers love.

It doesn’t start with conference keynotes or articles for Inc.  Connect with a community on Twitter that cares about your issue–free trade, landfill diversion, employee empowerment or cupcakes.  Solicit people’s opinions, share what you’re doing and promote their work and thoughts.  This (just basic networking) shapes you as a connector and leader in the space.  Set up search terms that help you flag conversations like ‘recycled paper’ For New Leaf Paper, for example.

Blog (there’s a reason I’m not the first person to tell you that blogging is effective)
Whether you commit to blogging three days per week, once a week or twice monthly, be consistent.  You don’t need to fill your blog with grand ideas.  Sharing how you are building your company and talking about other people, companies, tools or trends in your sector is enough.  37signals’ blog Signal vs. Noise covers design, business, experience, simplicity, the web and culture.  It’s a daily read for the tech community.

Tap your community
Richard Seireeni calls this the Gort Cloud–an abstract network of trendspotters, advocacy groups, business alliances, certifying organizations and social networks.  Seventh Generation, Tesla Motors and Stonyfield Farm used the Gort Cloud as a partial replacement for traditional marketing.

This list is far from complete.  What other tactics have you used or seen other businesses use successfully?

* An excellent podcast from Priya Haji from Stanford Social Innovations.

Like this interview?  You can thank Chris on Twitter like this.

Cause marketing is the only marketing segment that grew last year, which is good news for Chris Noble, who runs Causemedia Group.  It means that when he has an idea for a social media fundraising campaign, he can find a sponsor who’s dying to be a part of it.  And when he’s asked to run a generic media campaign for a brand, he can nudge them toward a cause component that they fall in love with.

So what makes his fundraising campaigns so successful?  I invited Chris to Cause Capitalism to talk about the core elements of a successful social media cause campaign and how smaller companies can create their own online campaigns for social good.

Click the player to listen to the interview (well worth it) or right-click and save for the MP3.

Lesson 1: Go deep inside the organization to identify a cause that you care about

If you reach beyond the obvious cause to something you really care about, you’ll come up with better ideas and your campaign will be more sincere.  PositScience makes brain training software.  An obvious charity partner for them would be a nonprofit involved in brain disorder or brain damage. But when PositScience employees really thought about what cause mattered to them (and not just what tied into their brand), they went with an organization that works with disabled veterans (some of whom do have brain damage, so there is still a link, just not the low-hanging fruit).

Lesson 2: Don’t treat the tools like they’re something different

Treat your social media tools like they’re an extension of your existing program.  They are just vehicles to present the campaign. The tools will also evolve. The most important thing is to have a coherent campaign strategy that incorporates whatever tools are around today.

Lesson 3: React quickly

When you launch a campaign you’re beginning a conversation. The minute your campaign is launched, you’ll start to get feedback. Respond to it according to the overall message of your campaign.

About Chris Noble
Chris is the CEO of Causemedia Group, which includes What Gives?! and StudioGood.  Causemedia Group has run over 600 campaigns and raised more than $25 million for charity by bringing brands, celebrities, and nonprofits together with social media.  His goal is to make it easier for non-profits to raise money.   Say ‘Hi’ to Chris on Twitter (@cfnoble) or hear him speak on cause marketing and social media at the Cause Marketing Forum in Chicago this June.

Flowtown

By Lee Fox for Cause Capitalism.

Philanthropy is characterized by specific behaviors in the context of compassion (the love of humanity), action (volunteerism), donation (the gift of money) and collaboration (partnerships).  Successful social enterprises require each of these elements to healthfully co-exist.

Of course, all it takes is the pinch of a bad economy to throw the harmony off-key.  Many nonprofits are experiencing the downwards spiral of donation dollars, for example, and need new ways to successfully move beyond their reliance of traditional donation in-takes.

Sharing their perspectives on this were John Brennan (OpenAction), Jacob Colker (The Extraordinaries), Christine Egger (Social Actions), Pamela Hawley (Universal Giving), Kari Hayden (Donors Choose), Dan Morrison (Citizen Effect) and Ben Rattray (Change.org) with Bill Scheurer (Karma Korn) moderating the workshop, “disruptive philanthropy.”

Taken from a term first coined by Clayton Christensen as “disruptive innovation,” the ideology of disruptive philanthropy identifies how a new population can participate in a way that was historically only accessible to an elite group.

In our traditional approach to cultivating philanthropists, the nonprofit sectors typically focused on wealthy people (or foundations) because substantial monies are required over sustained time to affect change for a recognized cause.  In today’s world, however, we have to consider how the widespread adoption of digital technology is changing who can qualify as a philanthropist.

Bold crowd-sourcing innovations, such as conceived and built by the panelist organizations, have proven the emergence of “philanthropy 2.0” can cultivate a brand-new donor-base.  Simplistically defined, crowd-sourcing is the online version of giving circles–whereby individual donors collectively pool their charitable monies.

In the case of Donors Choose, Kari shared that her organization treats the $1-dollar donor with the same gusto as a higher-net donor.  Each donation receives a “thank you” from kids in the classroom whose project was funded online.  Radical personalization like this is possible as a result of digital and social platforms.

But as Dan of Social Citizen was quick to point out, online mechanisms (mobile, social media, etc.) are not actually the differentiators in these new models of philanthropy.  Instead, they need to be treated as “new plumbing” capable of enabling a low-cost way to celebrate and cultivate new philanthropists.

Meaningful.  Personal.  Easy.  Transparent.  These elements are key.

In consideration of volunteerism, Jacob of the Extraordinaries asked the room to think about the investment nonprofits ask people to give for the benefit of a cause.  “We have to be aware of the time they spend online enjoying such things as Farmville, of which there are 99 million players.  That’s more than the population of France!” he said.  “Collectively, we spend billions of hours a year playing solitaire. So how can we capture that time to benefit the causes we want them to get behind?”

The answer, asserted the panel, is to disrupt current online activities with equally or engaging alternatives.  It’s highly significant that in this Age of Information, digital technology has cultivated the largest collection of human knowledge through resources such as Wikipedia.com.   Organizations in our sector must then identify easy and self-fulfilling ways to tap into that collective knowledge.   Donor’s Choose does so by involving their teachers in vetting the projects of new teacher users, for example.

Ben of Change.org reminded the room that within philanthropy 2.0, there are still simple “asks” that could be labeled disruptive without being invasive.

One such crowd-sourced example is reCAPTCHA whose social mission is to get older newspaper content online without incurring actual costs to do so.  Their business is to validate that a new site user is actually a human (and not a BOT), so that when signing up for an account, two words are displayed that the user has to enter.  As it turns out, one word is letter-for-letter known by the computer, and the other is actually a digitized picture, scanned-in for user-input which collectively amasses words of post-dated articles from the New York Times, thus fulfilling their social mission.

There is no doubt technology is changing the face of philanthropy.  The question is, will your organization leverage the 2.0 toolkit in order to attach social values to core business drivers online, or will you be on the other side of the digital gulf?

Lee is the founder of KooDooZ, a cause-based social networking site for students, their family and friends.

Image credit: KMackay