Big Gifts: $4.6 trillion reasons are target female donors

March 17, 2009

Reposted from NonProfit News

Women are committed donors who care deeply about the causes they support. Yet surprisingly, despite women's economic power and philanthropic potential, too often nonprofits are not engaging them strategically or effectively.

Organizations are missing important giving opportunities, including opportunities for major gifts, by failing to help female donors achieve their true philanthropic potential, by relating to them in the same way as male donors, or by neglecting to learn and incorporate into their work knowledge about women's giving preferences and priorities.

If asked, most nonprofit professionals would probably say female donors are important to their organizations. And some nonprofits have a staff person dedicated to reaching out to women donors or a designated women's giving program. As important as these efforts are, though, to maximize the potential of women's giving, nonprofits need to ensure that an intentional, sustained and strategic approach to involving women as donors is integrated into every aspect of development and engrained throughout the culture of the organization.

Women give, and they give significantly. But they often approach giving differently than men. Nonprofits that want to engage women as donors need to understand their giving behavior and what motivates it. Further, they must make a paradigm shift from viewing women as one segment of their donor databases to understanding that women potentially comprise half or more of their donors -- and significantly influence men's giving.

As Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen note in their recent book, The She-Spot, (2008) "Women are not a niche audience. They are the audience." Women make 83 percent of all consumer purchases, including big-ticket items such as cars and personal computers -- for themselves and for their families, Witter and Chen explain. And their economic clout is significant. They control more than half of the total wealth in the United States, and they are projected to inherit, control and manage much of the wealth in the future. Continue reading »

Yoplait removes breast cancer-linked hormone from yogurt, thanks in part to Fenton campaign.

March 4, 2009

After several years of an annual Fenton-designed "Think Before You Pink" Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign, Breast Cancer Action just scored one against Goliath. In February of 2009, General Mills announced they will take the cancer-linked hormone rBGH out of Yoplait yogurt. One more "pink-washed" company is finally turning pink.
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