Is This A Viable Alternative To Crowdsourced Social Good Campaigns? - A blog by Olivia Khalili
Olivia Khalili created Cause Capitalism to show businesses how to grow by incorporating a social mission.
Is This A Viable Alternative To Crowdsourced Social Good Campaigns?
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.
