Cause Marketing Pro Hopes To

Help Local Businesses Become Heroes

By John Voket

She has raised a seeing eye dog, helped build a school for orphans in Central Mexico, survived not one, but two bouts with cancer, and enjoyed a nearly two-decade career in the hospitality industry, including a stint at one of Florida’s Walt Disney resorts. Now she wants to help teach Newtown businesses large and small how to help save the world one cause at a time, while proving that philanthropic initiatives can help companies survive, grow, and thrive in the current economy.

Because she believes entire communities suffer when local businesses close, Katherine Purchase and her Newtown-based Monarch Ventures LLC is building mutually beneficial alliances between charitable organizations and local businesses through cost-effective event-based “cause marketing” activities, which is to say, any activity conducted in support of a social or charitable cause that is not dependent upon donations.

Ms Purchase told The Newtown Bee that by bringing businesses and charitable organizations together through community-centric activities that are unique, accessible, affordable to the masses, and inclusive rather than exclusive in nature, local businesses can make a measurable and positive impact upon their local community and their financial bottom line.

In the process, she said, businesses and charitable organizations gain both visibility and associated benefits from increased influence, resources and reach for the collective good.

“Everybody cares about something, and everybody enjoys a party,” she said. “So we link compassion with action and in the process generate visibility through impact that results in growth.”

Ms Purchase pointed out that a recent national Cone Roper survey found that 83 percent of consumers will support a business that cares about what concerns them. So instead of selective advertising and target audiences, Monarch Ventures advocates the “zero degrees of separation” philosophy — everybody counts, and everybody is a referral; no exceptions.

“It is necessary for businesses to reconnect with their community on a grass-roots level by reaching out to others, connecting with others if they are to survive,” Ms Purchase said. “And this simply doesn’t happen by being yet another ‘sign’ for consumers to have to wade through.”

Trusting In Business

She cites a Business Week report describing consumer perceptions about business as, “...cynical, lacking integrity and not trustworthy.”

“Words alone will not change this perception; actions speak louder than words,” she said. “Consider also the internal perspective according to the Cone Cause Evolution Survey, 2007 that 72 percent of employees want their companies to do more to support social causes or issues.”

In short, corporate “social responsibility initiatives” are gaining momentum both internally and externally in the mainstream marketplace. And with more than a million charitable organizations currently registered with the Internal Revenue Service, the field is wide open for growth and impact.

This was not always the case, however. Ms Purchase said until recently, even many of the big corporations were not fully buying into the long-term and far-reaching benefits of cause marketing.

“Even as recently as 2001, companies were not grasping the concept,” she said. “They perceived the causes as competition, effectively out there competing for the same dollars as the businesses. But since then, there is an increasing awareness that unless businesses come together in partnership with the causes that matter to their customers and their employees, they will not be able to maintain competitiveness.”

She said today, small businesses can enjoy even greater advantages by going after cause partnerships because high-level corporate relationships between businesses and causes are being trimmed back or even eliminated.

“As large corporations shift focus, cut payrolls and change the process by which they support cause marketing, it opens a path to small businesses which already contribute more than $40 million to causes annually just by writing checks,” she said. “But when they find out what a difference it can make by writing a check and reaching out to touch the cause they are supporting, they are maximizing the power of their donations while building greater consumer loyalties based on that cause affiliation.”

Increasing Volunteerism

Ms Purchase referenced a recent survey that showed the current economic downturn is creating an explosion in volunteerism — one million more Americans volunteered in 2008 than in the previous year. That means nearly 62 million Americans are volunteering for one or more causes — a number no business should ignore if it hopes to survive and grow in the future.

On her own, Ms Purchase is committed to “walking the talk” that she espouses in her profession by guaranteeing 15 percent of each work week is dedicated to volunteerism. She carries out that mission splitting her energy between Pegasus Therapeutic Riding in Brewster, N.Y., and the Connecticut Make-A-Wish Foundation in Trumbull.

She also donates ten percent of the company’s profits before expenses to Smile Train, an international charity that provides cleft lip and cleft palate surgery to children in need, as well as providing cleft-related training to doctors.

Each event or activity Ms Purchase helps organize is customized to each client based on its needs, and the spirit of philanthropy or types of causes the client seeks to support. And as long as the company puts its heart behind the initiative, she said it cannot fail in achieving the collateral benefit of appealing to either future clients, or those who will spread the word about the company’s efforts, thereby influencing future clients in ever-widening circles of influence.

When asked about the company’s choice of using the monarch butterfly for its logo, Ms Purchase shares the hope and vision that using the power of business to touch lives for the better and giving people cause to smile would travel the globe and change the future.

“Orange is the color of potential,” Ms Purchase said. “It speaks of sun, new beginnings, energy, enthusiasm, and joy. Monarch butterflies are renowned for their long-distance migrations, just as we hope this business practice will travel around the world. Butterflies pollinate flowers so a new generation of foliage can emerge much the same way cause marketing can change the present into a bright future for many”.

Monarch Ventures LLC was conceived in 2001 on the premise that conducting business as a collaborative partnership in a socially responsible manner is not only mutually beneficial, but essential to individual and collective success and has been granted certification as a B Corporation (www.bcorporation.net/monarchventures).

B Corporations are a new type of corporation that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Corporations are unlike traditional responsible businesses because they meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards; institutionalize stakeholder interests; and build collective voice through the power of a unifying brand.

More information is available at www.monarchventures.org, or email Ms Purchase directly at  katherine@monarchventures.org.