Fully Funding Your Nonprofit

Nonprofits often receive funding for providing a specific service, but not for the organizational infrastructure that supports the service. Running a food bank or crisis hotline is crucial work. Who is going to pay the rent, phone bill, and liability insurance needed to provide such services? Donors have historically avoided funding “overhead.” Understandably, they want...Continue reading

Designing Better Student Loans Using System Thinking

Students go into debt to pay for college. In the United States, the amount of student debt has surpassed $1.3 trillion, which puts it on par with auto loans. Americans like to think the student debt is an American phenomenon, but this article from the New York Times shows that students in other countries also...Continue reading

Organizational Narrative: Lucky Iron Fish

Lucky Iron Fish is a certified B Corp working to improve health around the world, starting in Cambodia. They’ve made a short video, with the help of Google, to tell their organization’s origin story. The video is a great two-minute organizational narrative example that uses the five parts of Joseph Campbell’s mythological story form to...Continue reading

Marketing Free School Lunch in the Summer

Low-income kids fall behind during the summer, not just academically, but in health and nutrition as well. When school is out, students lack access to free school lunch. How do communities distribute free school lunch to these 21 million children when they aren’t in a central location such as the neighborhood school?

The Power of Promotion: Marketing Same Sex Marriage

Regardless of whether you support same-sex marriage or not, have you wondered how the movement went from losing 30 state-wide votes by 2009 to winning approval in 37 states and a Supreme court ruling by 2015? It really was a stunning comeback victory for marketing same-sex marriage.

The Power of Distribution: Legal Recreational Marijuana

Distribution is vital when launching a new product. How else do you get to enjoy the latest blockbuster movie, new car model, or newly legal recreational marijuana? In recent years three U.S. states–Colorado, Oregon, and Washington state–have legalized recreational marijuana. The states have an interest in effectively distributing marijuana. Otherwise, they won’t realize the increased...Continue reading

Health Marketing Done Right in Brazil: A Case Study

In business school, we poured over case studies about how companies solved, or didn’t solve, a particular challenge. So here’s a challenge for you: how would you use existing products, distribution channels and means of promotion in health marketing to improve nutrition in one of the largest and richest countries in the world?Continue reading

The Power of Promotion: Three Ingredients to Make Ideas Go Viral

“Viral” has taken on a new, and mostly positive, connotation in the Internet era. A video, a photo, an article bursts onto the digital stage and suddenly it’s everywhere. Everyone is talking about it, copying it, satirizing it, secretly wishing that they were making viral content. Even social sector marketers want to know how to...Continue reading

The Power of Brand: Naming Rights in Yosemite National Park

As described in a recent New York Times article, the U.S federal government and the Delaware North company are locked in a contract dispute about who owns the brand naming rights and other marketing aspects of Yosemite National Park. President Abraham Lincoln first signed legislation to protect the Yosemite region for the enjoyment of all...Continue reading

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