By Richard Earle
Chicago: NTC Business Books, 2000, 322 pages

Veteran ad agency executive Richard Earle offers lessons he has learned during his 30-year career in the field during which time he created numerous cause campaigns; he provides experts and novices with insightful guidelines on cause-related advertising. Earle explains the entire advertising process and terminology, methodology and gives a step-by-step primer on how to research, develop, test and measure the success of a cause ad campaign. His book also provides invaluable information on the Advertising Council and how to apply for Ad Council sponsorships. Lots of good case studies are included along with the author's top ten list of successful campaigns and some serious flops too, and an interesting section on the pros and cons of using celebrity spokespersons

By Bill Shore
New York: Random House, 1999, 292 pages

In 1984, Bill Shore founded Share Our Strength, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that has raised more than $82 million to support anti-poverty efforts worldwide. Using the metaphor of medieval cathedral builders who labored over generations to complete a grandiose structure, his very readable book tells the stories of the quest that he and many others have pursued to leave a legacy. His chapter "You're Worth More than You Think You Are" presents new and creative ways nonprofits have developed sustainable operations through licensing, cause-related marketing, other corporate partnerships and social-enterprise businesses that leverage assets, services or product production capabilities to generate new revenue streams. Throughout, Shore cogently advocates shifting the paradigm from nonprofits' exclusive reliance on traditional charitable contributions to committing to entrepreneurial activities that create wealth. The chapter concludes with steps on how nonprofits can assess their ability to develop and sustain entrepreneurial ventures.

By Sue Adkins
Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1999, 307 pages

Replete with instructive charts, graphs, guidelines and explanations, Sue Adkins' book is a comprehensive overview on the subject. Each of the five core sections is thorough in its coverage of the topic. "Part One: Cause-Related Marketing in Context" defines cause-related marketing and explains how and why it works from both the corporate and nonprofit vantage points. "Part Two: Who Cares, Why Care?" tackles the subject of the motivations and incentives that drive corporations and nonprofits to commit to and believe in cause-related marketing. "Part Three: Applications of Cause-Related Marketing" includes a survey of cause-related marketing models and 17 case studies. "Part Four: Towards Excellence - The Principles and the Process" offers strategic and tactical guidance for partnership development. Adkins, who directs the cause-related marketing campaign at UK's Business in the Community, closes with an essay on the future of cause-related marketing concluding that cultural and market forces will continue to converge to make cause-related marketing ever more essential for successful nonprofits and corporations alike.

By James Austin
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000, 203 pages

The John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration where he teaches social entrepreneurship and nonprofit management, James Austin writes for both business and nonprofit leaders. By keenly analyzing successful partnerships crafted by Hewlett-Packard, Reebok, Bayer, Timberland, Nordstrom and Visa with nonprofit organizations such as Amnesty International, City Year, National Geographic and the American Humane Association, he reveals common elements and strategies in successful partnerships. Rich with examples, the author points out invaluable lessons learned by both partners in developing a winning strategy and successful working relationship. The book's final chapter, "Guidelines for Collaborating Successfully," is highly instructive on the process of developing strategic and effective partnerships.

The Drucker Foundation                                                    Introduction by James E. Austin and Frances Hesselbein

Developing effective nonprofit-business collaborations is a demanding task but quite achievable. This workbook is designed to complement James Austin’s The Collaboration Challenge and help a nonprofit organization further its mission through strategic alliances with businesses. The workbook emphasizes the assets and capabilities that nonprofit organizations bring to alliances with businesses. It presents a four-phase process of preparing an organization for alliances, planning alliances, developing alliances, and renewing alliances. The workbook can be downloaded without charge from The Drucker Foundation website. An accompanying thirty-minute video also is available for purchase from the Drucker Foundation.

By Shirley Sagawa and Eli Segal
Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 278 pages

Shirley Sagawa is a former Policy Adviser to First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. She also previously served as executive director of the Corporation for National Service and as Chief Counsel for Youth Policy to the Senate Labor Committee. Eli Segal is former CEO of the Corporation for National Service and is currently President and CEO of the Welfare to Work Partnership.

Co-authors Sagawa and Segal, both attorneys, first utilized their respective public and private sector experience as leaders of AmeriCorps, the flagship of the Corporation for National Service. As they write in their introduction, the book "introduces businesspeople and nonprofit managers to cutting-edge cross-sector partnerships. It teaches the lessons we have gleaned from our own experience, written materials and more than one hundred interviews with individuals on both sides of cross-sector partnerships." Focusing on the social sector, the book provides innovative examples of public-private partnerships and step-by-step guidelines on how to create them in order to creatively address challenges facing society today.  Sagawa and Segal provide a good overview on how and why contemporary business and social organizations have teamed up to face market and society demands, the innovative technology that makes many partnerships possible and the spark that can make them highly effective.

The authors identify three types of exchanges that may occur within corporate-nonprofit partnerships:

• philanthropic exchanges: the donation of funds, goods or services by a business to an organization
• marketing exchanges: when a business affiliates itself with a social sector organization to satisfy consumer or distributor needs
• operational exchanges: wherein the social sector organization helps business increase its capacity to produce goods or services more competitively

Among the successful partnerships reviewed include those between Microsoft and the American Library Association, Denny's and Save the Children, BankBoston and City Year, and Home Depot and KaBOOM!.

By Curt Weeden
San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1998, 236 pages

With forewords by Paul Newman and Peter Lynch, this book addresses the social investing imperative for corporations and also offers perspective on partnering for nonprofits. Curt Weeden, who calls corporate social investing a "one-size fits-all" concept that is applicable to all companies regardless of size, offers persuasive arguments supporting his premise that no company can be successful without a focused and strategic plan for social investing. Weeden makes the case that companies should convert traditional philanthropy into a resource that can help them achieve their business objectives and at the same time open up new revenue streams for nonprofit organizations. His ideas culminate in his "10-Step Corporate Social Investment Model," which is reprinted here with permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

A former Johnson & Johnson vice president in charge of that company's $146 million-a-year philanthropy program, Weeden is now president of The Contributions Academy in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, which provides management education.

By Reynold Levy
Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999, 235 pages

President of the International Rescue Committee and chairman of the board of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Reynold Levy was executive director of New York's 92nd Street Y and president of the AT&T Foundation. His long tenure at AT&T provides much of the framework and key reference points for this useful instructional guide.

Levy's book is divided into four parts; the first, "Fundamentals of Corporate Philanthropy," defines the motivations for corporate philanthropy, the framework for results-oriented corporate philanthropy and the vision and strategy that can make corporate philanthropy successful. Part Two, "The Workings of Corporate Philanthropy," reviews a number of famously successful corporate-nonprofit partnerships as well as the trials and travails of not so successful endeavors, all from the corporate perspective. Part Three, "The Beneficiaries of Corporate Philanthropy, The Secrets and Rewards of Asking Well" looks at philanthropy and partnerships from the perspective of the nonprofit. The fourth and final section is a forward-looking review of what cultural trends might well have significant impact on the future of corporate philanthropy.

The Ford Foundation Corporate Involvement Initiative
31 pages

The Win-Win Report (PDF) is a product of the Ford Foundation Corporate Involvement Initiative, a $30 million effort to leverage private sector resources for low-income people in the United States. The report spotlights models of successful, wealth-creating partnerships between corporate and community interests. 

Launched in 1996, the Corporate Involvement Initiative supports Win-Win Partners, a network of companies and organizations pursuing “win-win strategies”—smart, innovative business solutions in community investment that build competitive advantage. The network includes major U.S. corporations—such as AOL Time Warner, State Farm Insurance, Marriott International, Pfizer, and the Gap—that have employed “win-win strategies” to advance strategic business interests. Win-Win Partners also includes national organizations that assist companies with valuable services such as research and market data, brokering, networking opportunities with other executives, and years of professional experience in the field.

The Win-Win Report features the success stories of the Win-Win Partners network, highlights various models of wealth-creating partnerships between corporate and community interests, shares valuable lessons in “win-win strategies,” and unveils resources in research, consulting services, networking opportunities, training and data.

In addition to the Win-Win report, the Ford Foundation has also launched a web site targeted to senior business executives and the media to highlight win-win strategies. Modeled after the report, winwinpartner.com features company success stories and profiles of nonprofit organizations that serve as value-added resources to businesses looking to engage in these strategies.

Independent Sector, The Conference Board, Council on Foundations, National Academy of Public Administrators, National Alliance of Business and the National Governors' Association 
April 2000, 24 pages

A discussion paper that codifies initial ideas developed by the six collaborating organizations about the changing roles, changing relationships, and new opportunities for collaboration among the business, government, and nonprofit sectors. The paper identifies seven factors that contribute to successful cross-sector collaborations:

• a common goal;
• a convener;
• a structure to manage to core talents of each participant;
• awareness of the geographic dimension;
• effective communication;
• periodic assessment;
• trust and confidence.

Download Changing Roles, Changing Relationships.

By The Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Strategy Group          Summer 2001, 16 pages

This pamphlet suggests a series of steps to be taken to promote and guide the future evolution of the important partnerships that are being forged between businesses and nonprofit organizations to solve public problems. It outlines the opportunities and challenges these types of arrangements present as well as proposes mechanisms through which dialogue can be enhanced and corporate-nonprofit partnerships can be more easily realized. A PDF version of this pamphlet can be downloaded from The Aspen Institute website.

By Sara E. Meléndez
March 2002

In this article, Strength from Difference—Six Rules for Business Partnerships with Nonprofits, Sara E. Meléndez, president and CEO of Independent Sector, shares several suggestions for business executives working with nonprofit organizations. In addition, she tells how The Home Depot tackled one business issue by developing partnerships with social service and employment agencies, city leaders, and the local police department.

By Susan Gray and Holly Hall
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 30, 1998

The authors provide an overview of some major partnership arrangements including the $60 million agreement between Coca-Cola and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and offer tips on how charities can maximize the benefits of partnerships with corporations. The full text of the article, Cashing In on Charity's Good Name,  is reprinted with permission of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. 

By James Austin
HBS Working Knowledge, October 1, 2001

In his recent working paper, "Marketing's Role in Cross-Sector Collaboration," Harvard Business School professor James Austin outlines three stages of collaboration between businesses and nonprofits—philanthropic, transactional, and integrative—and examines the related role of institutional and cause-related marketing. This excerpt, entitled Connecting With Nonprofits, focuses on the collaborative stages. In an accompanying Q&A, Austin explains the benefits of collaboration and the potential pitfalls that may ensue if a business and collaborating nonprofit are not in tune.

Monday Developments, September 24, 2001, and November 5, 2001

The first in a series of two articles, Building Partnerships Between Corporations and NGOs discusses the unique challenges and merits of partnerships between corporations and NGOs in addressing the complex issues facing impoverished communities overseas. The second article, Public-Private Partnerships in Action, highlights the “Young Minds in Motion Program,” which was piloted in Indonesia through a partnership between Microsoft and Pact, a nonprofit international development organization. The articles are reprinted with permission of Monday Developments, InterAction's bi-weekly newsletter.