BOOK BRIEFING
Raising Awareness Not Enough to Solve Problems, Says Author
Too many nonprofits are
overly concerned with staying
alive, not with achieving meaningful results, argues Brian
Reich in his new book, Shift &
Reset: Strategies for Addressing
Serious Issues in a Connected
Society. In an interview, Mr.
Reich, senior vice president at
Edelman Digital, a public-rela-tions firm, discusses why he believes nonprofits are failing to
bring about social change.
What do you think nonprofits are getting wrong?
I don’t think they’re focusing
on actual behavioral change.
The success metrics for non-profit organizations are things
like amount of money raised
and how high you rank on a
list of respected, well-known,
highly-branded organizations,
and not your ability to reverse
the course of a particular issue.
I talked with Feeding Amer-
ica for the book, and the group
used to be my client. They do
a tremendous job of feeding
Americans, but they’re not ad-
dressing the hunger crisis in
America.
JEROLD PANAS,
LINZY &
PARTNERS
Consultants to
Philanthropy
We are proud of our
association with
Cause marketing is too
often a goal rather than
a starting point for
charities, says Brian Reich.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 111
River Street, Hoboken, N.J. 07030;
(201) 748-6000; http://www.wiley.
com; 393 pages; $45.00; ISBN: 978-
0-470-94267-3.
Why are you skeptical
about cause-marketing
campaigns?
They suggest that by being
aware, you are accomplishing
something, when these cam-
paigns are really just a start-
ing point.
JAMES M. HAYES
President & CEO
TRINITY MUSCATINE
Muscatine, Iowa
JPL is regarded as one of
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resource development.
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WORTH READING
Bloomberg’s Leadership May Hold Clues
JEROLD PANAS,
LINZY & PARTNERS
800 234-7777
www.panaslinzy.com
to His Future Giving, Suggests Fast Company
As Michael R. Bloomberg
eyes the end of his third and
final term as New York’s
mayor, his bold leadership
on public health and environmental issues may offer clues to the future of his
philanthropy, according to
an article in the August issue of Fast Company.
Even though you are
a social-media expert,
you are very critical of
its use. How does it fall
short?
Social media, in more cases
than not, and especially in the
context of nonprofits, has reduced a lot of the promotion
and awareness to 140 characters and repeating the same
thing over and over. There’s
this confusion between awareness and understanding.
There’s no evolution of the relationship, no deepening of the
connection. Organizations are
using these tools simply to find
other ways to ask for money or
to build their lists [of support-ers.]
JEROLD PANAS,
LINZY &
PARTNERS
Consultants to
Philanthropy
Mr. Bloomberg, who has
given away hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, reveals little to the magazine
about his plans after his
term ends in 2013. But the
article paints a picture of
what the billionaire mayor,
whose wealth is valued at
$18-billion by Forbes, might
have in mind. His foundation, says the magazine, is
likely to play a key role in
next steps. “What our foundation’s trying to do is fund things nobody else is interested in,” Mr. Bloomberg tells the
magazine.
We are proud of our
association with
Such programs include the smoking-cessation program to which he pledged $125-million in
2006, and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a collective of city leaders from around
the world who are joining forces to fight global warming. Mr. Bloomberg, who became chairman of the C40 Group and has pledged to give the organization $6-million annually, thinks
federal governments can’t address climate change because they get mired in the politics of the
issue. Cities, on the other hand, and mayors in particular, he believes, are the ones most capable of supporting and enacting creative solutions to the problems associated with climate
change.
TINA POSTEL
Chief Executive Officer
BILLINGS FAMILY YMCA
Billings, Montana
“It is not the mayor’s job to survey the public and see whether or not the public thinks that climate change is something to worry about,” he says. “It is the mayor’s job to point out today—
forget 50 years from now—that our water is getting less pure, that our air is getting dirtier,
that our congestion is getting worse.”
JPL is regarded as one of
the nation’s premier firms
in the field of campaign
services and financial
resource development.
Call us or go online!
For more, go to: http://www.fastcompany.com
—MARIA DI MENTO
What can nonprofits learn
from corporations?
The greatest benefit that a
Walmart or a FedEx could offer
to an organization like Feeding
America is operational efficiency and understanding, not just
a big check.
Walmart is an unbelievably
efficient mover of products; Apple has a production capability
that allows them to make margins on the same technology
that everybody else develops
that are just three, four, five,
10 times what everybody else
is doing.
What can we learn from
them? When applied to a serious issue, we might have a
fighting chance of addressing
the solution.
—CAROLINE BERMUDEZ
JEROLD PANAS,
LINZY & PARTNERS
800 234-7777
www.panaslinzy.com
