TweetThis post appeared earlier this week as a guest-post in the Cause Marketing Forum’s blog, Companies & Causes. I’m reposting it here as a kick-off to a series of posts about Tēvolution’s nonprofit partners, in which I’ll describe each of them, why we chose them, how we are mutually benefiting, and the state of the [...]
TweetOur pilot Tēvolution run is over. As of two weeks ago, we sold out, officially. We produced 4000 bottles in mid-December, and set out to bring them to life. Between LA and DC we sold in eight or so stores, representing different areas of each city, different types of venues, and different consumers. We learned [...]
TweetToday I brought Pound Coffee, in Washington, DC, their second case of Tēvolution. This remarkable coffee shop, located in the heart of one of DC’s business districts, has proven itself the ideal location to launch our new business. Of course, all business starts with people, and this is no different. Pound’s co-founder, Karl Johnson (@karljohn [...]
TweetLast week we took Tēvolution, the company I co-founded, from the dark shadows of an NDA to the light of day. The website went live, the teas got into their first store, and I went from hiding my identity to displaying it fully and proudly. What will we be focusing on as we move from [...]
TweetA few weeks ago I wrote a post called “Consulting Projects Rock,” where I reported on the initial conversation I’d had with a group of MBA club leaders in the hope of starting two MBA consulting projects. Today I held the kick-off meeting with the two teams that ultimately came to fruition (15 resumes later, [...]
TweetWhen I began this blog a few months ago, I promised myself that I wouldn’t use it to critique other cause marketing campaigns. After all, I’m about to embark on a campaign of my own and until I can prove that mine works, what right do I have to critique anyone else’s? But I have [...]
TweetLast year I put together a team of three MBA students from a prominent university to help develop our nonprofit evaluation strategy. I met the president of the Net Impact club on campus, a nation-wide MBA club with chapters in nearly every business school. We developed a simple project description, emailed it out, and got [...]
TweetIt’s the holy grail of cause marketing: tangibility. The idea behind tangibility seems simple – create a giving program that means something to the consumer so it’s easy to understand and meaningful. Cone calls it a fundamental that resonates with today’s consumers. Not tangible means not sellable means not profitable. Examples of tangible programs exist [...]
TweetShould I contain my excitement? Today’s meeting was OFF THE HOOK! Honestly, it couldn’t have gone better if we had scripted every minute of it. From my team’s interaction, to the fun back and forth with the nonprofit team, to their comments, everything was perfect. So what did I learn from this? A few important [...]
TweetWell, actually, it started a long long time ago. But tomorrow we host our first formal partnership discussion with a nonprofit. We will be pitching to an inspirational educational organization helping low-income and disadvantaged preschoolers across America achieve the same literacy and socialization levels as their better-off peers. They have volunteers in more than 10 [...]
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