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Change the World Charities

We live in an age where most people believe that the most effective organizations at getting things done are businesses. Due to their nature and size, businesses try to recruit the most creative, effective leaders and managers available. Businesses focus on results. We often hear complaints from business leaders that both government and non-profit organizations tend to focus on process rather than results. It is time for business to quit complaining and do something. Something more than just giving some excess money away to a laundry list of local and national charities.

Businesses that contribute any sum of money across a large number of charities is like giving $50,000 to 50,000 pan handlers. At $1 a piece, it solves nothing. What's needed is focus and responsibility. Perhaps one answer are Brand Charities.

A Brand Charity focuses on solving societal problems that are directly related to the knowledge and skill necessary for your business to be successful. An added bonus is that when you are successful or actually accomplishing good through your Brand Charity, your business brand reputation will also grow among your customers as well as the community. Here's two quick examples.

Recently Universal Technical Institute, the largest educator of automobile technicians in the world with 10 campuses in the U.S. and 17,000 students, recently launched a Brand Charity called Redline Resistance. This charity focuses on reducing teenage driving fatalities which number nearly 8,000 per year. Although many other organizations such as MADD, Chrysler, Ford and others have made some effort to reduce teen driving, there has been no decline in the number of deaths in the last 10 years. UTI is uniquely positioned to become a leader in this worthy cause. It recruits and trains teenagers on how to service and repair motorcycles. Their marketing department knows what motivates teens, their education department knows how to educate them and professionalize them. They also have a stake in success. Every year, they lose one or more students to a fatal accident. With this expertise, they have taken a unique approach of teens talking to teens, focusing on becoming expert drivers which include becoming a safe driver. Their goal is to become the leading advocate of teen (safe) driving. Their CEO is completely sincere that if they got no brand visibility for this effort, they would do it because it is the right thing to do. But often doing good and doing well pay off together. If UTI becomes a household word, it will be because of Redline Resistance rather than their schools. (RedlineResistance.com)

The point is UTI is not donating money to other organizations to take this on. They are using their own internal expertise, their relationships with educators and major auto and motorcycle manufacturers and their know-how and trade secrets to try to bring about a change in a problem that has killed 88,000 Americans in the last ten years.

That's a Brand Charity.

Another New York Stock Exchange company, NuSkin, adopted Seacology, an environmental organization focused on preserving both the environment and culture of primarily South Pacific Islanders. (Although now they reach out to people who live on islands throughout the world.) NuSkin created a line of botanical based skin care products that contains ingredients from many of the islands they are seeking to preserve. There is obviously a virtuous cycle of preserving the ecology, plants and people of a region that is helping your company create unique products. It is also a great source of pride for NuSkin distributors. With NuSkin's support, Seacology (Seacology.org) has launched scores of projects that preserve coral reefs, indigenous rain forests as well as having built medical clinics, schools and community centers. I hope you get the idea...brand charities rock!

Procter & Gamble is currently working on a way to help clean up the world's water supplies. Every year 5 million people, mostly children, die from diarrhea caused by impure water. Procter & Gamble is the originator of Ivory soap and scores of other soap products. With distribution worldwide, what better company is there to take on a charity of ending death from impure water.

So, here's the challenge.

What if WalMart was going to get serious about improving K-8 education by recruiting, training and funding 100,000 licensed elementary school teachers, offered free to school districts whose primary student body is below the poverty line. We know that increasing student teacher ratio is one intervention that nearly always causes a better outcome. The three WalMart heirs have a current net worth of nearly 90 billion dollars and annual income of over 1 billion. With those kind of resources, they could help improve literacy and education directly among their targeted customers and future employees. Education is already their number one charity, but so far, they have only stuck their toe in the water. If they really want to improve their reputation, let's see them do something. Something as big as they are.

The big idea of a corporate Brand Charity is to have corporations themselves be responsible for the outcome. This isn't about giving money away, it is about solving the problem.

The American Dream Challenge wants to expand this idea of business Brand Charities throughout the country. Whether your business is large or small, whether you are an independent contractor, what is it that you do as a business that if applied to a social problem in your neighborhood, community, state, nation or the world could make a difference?

There are consultants who donate 10-20% of their available time to their consulting expertise to school districts, non-profits and others who could not afford experts. If you have something to offer, be your own Brand Charity.

So what is it that you or your business does that could make a difference? Imagine if we could get 1000 businesses all using their leadership resources and expertise to solve problems that plague their communities or the biggest problems of our age. There is simply no reason why we don't.

Here's what you can do:

1. Consider what you or your company is an expert at. What are you famous for? Why does your brand matter. And, what about your expertise could make a difference? Talk to your colleagues and co-workers about it.

2. Set up an internal task force. If you work for an organization, you will need an Executive sponsor, somebody who is likely to give their time and influence to supporting this project. Remember, this doesn't mean that your organization will have to give more money or more time for a good cause. Rather, it means focusing the giving that you do, adding your expertise to it and make something significant happen. This is the purpose of the task force. To determine what existing assets can be refocused and what new expertise can be added to create worthwhile outcomes.

3. On March 1st, the American Dream Project will launch a Brand Charity kit that you can download free of charge from our web site. If you would like to participate in the design process, have ideas or anything to offer, please send us a note. But don't wait, you can start now. Just use common sense and your moral imagination.