The Business of Giving

Speaker 1 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NV studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5.

Speaker 2 0:11
You're listening to special programming sponsored by the cars marketing Chamber of Commerce. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents, the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Speaker 3 0:37
People live in lightning. I think the whole world's addicted to the drama Hello everyone and welcome to the business of giving podcast. My name is Guy Dawson and I am the founder and executive director of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce and CMCC or the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce is committed to bringing businesses and nonprofit organizations together to create synergistic relationships that benefit the community. This show showcases just that. For more information about the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce We can be reached at cause marketing chamber.com. This valuable show is made possible through the generosity of our series sponsor solar up an energy solution and conservation company specializing in solar and battery storage systems, including solar panels to learn more about them, Seoul up.com. And as usual, I am here with Maria Perez, the cars marketing consultant, how was your week Maria?

Unknown Speaker 1:40
Terrific. How was yours? Causes

Speaker 3 1:42
causes causes, you know how what our life is like? Yep.

Unknown Speaker 1:47
But life with purpose and purposeful doing is awesome. So it's all good.

Speaker 3 1:55
Yeah, we've been in preparation for for this event that's coming up on the 14th thing. It's it's just interesting to see the way that people both in business and nonprofit organizations that we know nothing about that we've never heard of. They find us as we're starting to move into the event. This happens every time within the last few weeks. People just appear. It's just amazing. And it's always something that we greatly enjoy.

Unknown Speaker 2:24
So guy, I want to hear more about this event. I understand it's the 10th edition of this event. And can you talk a little bit about why the chamber conceived of this event and how it how it ties into the whole development of the chamber, the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce?

Speaker 3 2:46
Yes. Well, as you had just mentioned, this is the 10th edition of businesses with heart. It is an expo event that we started hosting in February of 2020, or 2015, excuse me the time just really fly. So it was initially just created as an opportunity for my company. I had an intern that was working with me at that time, her name is Cheryl green. And we were just looking for ways to generate more business on the public relations side. And she approached me about putting on an event she says guy, why don't you put on an event and invite all your friends and business to attend it. And then we'll make it a cause marketing oriented event. And I didn't even know what the phrase cause marketing even meant it was I said, cause marketing. That sounds like a great phrase. But I had no idea what it meant. And I learned that I was doing it already because I had been working with nonprofits on the PR side for for years ever since we got the business started back in 2008. So we put this event on the College of Southern Nevada provided us with a space to host the event at the Cheyenne campus out there. I invited a bunch of friends from the business community to come in and we had vendor tables we had cause marketing education, the nonprofit organization that we sponsored at that event was hearts ally village and animal rescue center that was just getting started great, great nonprofit. They're really one of the success Lewis excuse me success stories that I've seen in the time that we've really been immersed in this work with cause marketing. And it really surprised me, how they embrace the community, both the business people and the nonprofit organization, how they embrace this event, How excited everyone was and how they wanted us to do more of them. And so those that was the origins and then we just got together every six months and started putting on these events. We did two events at the College of Southern Nevada, and then we got invited into other venues and it just became this art ongoing thing, kind of unique niche here in Las Vegas. I mean, not that there's not lots of things that are done on the philanthropic platforms here in Vegas, but this specific combination of businesses and nonprofits was something that we started to get an itch into. And that was really the precursor of the beginning of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. Well, where are these businesses with heart events?

Unknown Speaker 5:26
So guy, tell me a little bit about how this event embodies the core values of the chamber.

Speaker 3 5:35
I mean, for us, we're, we're mission vision. Uh, huh. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for us, as I mentioned at the beginning of the broadcast, and in front of the beginning of every broadcast is that our organization is all about bringing businesses and nonprofit organizations together to leverage the assets that both sides have. And actually, you've done a lot in opening my eyes and the time that we've been working together, you've been a member of the chamber. And of course, you guest hosting or being a regular host on this show for actually quite a while now. Things that we've been doing, you've actually put a lot of the pieces together. I don't know if you know that or not. But right, but, you know, I'm not someone, I didn't go to school for this, I just kind of thought, What a great idea to do this. And I've had people around me over the last eight years who've supported us in the mission. But we just, we thought, what a great idea to highlight so many of these worthy nonprofit organizations that we knew existed in the community. And we also discovered how many people in business had this these philanthropic leanings where they contributed to things in nonprofits in the nonprofit world, you know, they worked at Animal Rescue centers, or battered women's shelters, I just had met so many people in business that were contributing. And we just were really committed to showing them the value of what this contribution could do for their business, that people would deliberately do business with them, because of the support that they provided the community. And so a lot of our mission, especially at the very beginning, Maria was getting small business people to understand the principles of cause marketing, to make it work for them. Because the big corporations, as you know, they understand these principles, and they use them very, very, they're very dedicated to cause marketing. So many of these big corporations, we wanted the small business people to understand that they could use the same principles to improve their their bottom line in terms of their contribution to the community and their business bottom line. And that along with the nonprofits, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 7:58
Yeah, what's really interesting is it. It's sort of what I'm hearing you say this has evolved into is beyond the value, though, because I think I'm hearing that the a lot of these businesses don't know how to articulate the social impact that this delivers. And that this marriage, and this event, helps to explain that to both sides of the fence. It's

Speaker 3 8:21
a culture. Yeah, as you know, being deeply rooted in this community for a lot more years than I have. I didn't realize what a culture cause marketing is. And you just mentioned the social impact. That was something that I wasn't really very aware of until we started to get into the work. And we really were working with these nonprofit organizations, we started to do events with them. These through these partnerships really saw the social impact, as you mentioned, is really significant that they were having on the community with the with the different types of services that they were providing, I mean, helping homeless teens feeding the community, we did a an event with three square in 2021. That was very, very impactful. A lot of people were really hurting. At that time. economically. We were in COVID. A lot of the unemployment services had run out. And we did an event with three square that we had about, I think it was 500 cars. We all met over at the Eastside Cannery and three squared did a food bank. And they literally provided basic food items for at least 500 families. I mean, there were there were cars that came there were 500 cars that went through there. And there were cars that went through there that were collecting groceries for two and three different families. So when you talk about the social impact, when you experience that type of thing, I mean, that's not you're talking the necessities of life, these people will really needed this otherwise they wouldn't have come over there to, to actually get these food items. So those types of experiences that we've had, they've shown that social impact that you just touched on a second ago,

Unknown Speaker 10:15
I think what's really critically important and valuable here is that the chamber is able to marry and bring these parties together. And, and I think, for me, as a practitioner, it's just lovely to see that if I, if we can, you know, as a member, if we can inform a business, gosh, I want to support this, but I don't know how, or a nonprofit, I want to attract this type of partner. But I don't know how that we're able to bring them together in this wonderful event that's happening soon, you're going to tell us more about I hope, and allow people to explore one another, to tell us more about the event, when it takes place where it's happening, and so on and so forth. So put it on their calendar.

Speaker 3 11:00
The 10th version of the 10th version of businesses with heart is going to be hosted on September the 14th, from 4pm to 8pm. At a wonderful venue here in town called the space which is just so popular for these Monday's dark events that have been held there and supported many nonprofit organizations. As a matter of fact, I think they're having an anniversary, the 10 year anniversary of Monday's dark, which is a great community event. And we are fortunate enough to be able to utilize that facility to host our event that's coming up. But we've what we've done through the years, Maria is that as we've gotten better and better at hosting these events, and knowing how to really create the value for both the businesses and the nonprofit organizations, we've expanded, so this event will, it will feature, of course, a nonprofit organization, which is called room Redux. And room Redux is a nonprofit that supports abused children. And the mission that they provide or the how they fulfill their mission is going into the homes of abuse children and remodeling, these children's rooms, and we're talking about repainting the walls, bringing in new furniture, they try to create a different environment in that bedroom where that child was actually abused. So the, again, the social impact of being able to do that affecting young people's lives in that way, is something that we're extremely supportive of, so that nonprofit will be a benefactor of the event. And of course, just like back in 2015, will be lots of trading of business there were but we also have a lot of people just in the community that tend to turn up for these events. Maria that actually has shocked me through the years, it's it's become much more of a community oriented event. At the very beginning. It was very business specific of the guests that we got. But as the years have gone on, we just get people they say that I went on Eventbrite, and this was about a nonprofit organization. I'm not in business. But this is exciting. I want to come out and be a part of this and they show up and there's going to be five speakers who talk about different things, of course, Jeff Keach with room Readex. He is going to be talking about how they meet their mission, I'm going to be giving a talk about the mission of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. And then we have three other speakers who are going to be talking about things related to causes and business, lots of great food. It's going to be catered by a local business called Sadie's catering and they've catered probably three or four of these events throughout the years, they've been our food partner, going back a long time. So yeah, there's you can't go wrong attending an event like this Maria, whether you're someone who's in business, or not just the energy and the the learning that you're going to experience being a part of this and the great people as you know, the people in our community are the this cause marketing community produces some outstanding, wonderful kind people. And just that alone, you know, when I first met you, Maria, and you were talking to you had just joined the chamber. And we were talking and you were saying, I found my people. I don't know if you remember that conversation a while ago, but that's how people feel when they attend our event. You feel like you're with your people.

Unknown Speaker 14:34
Yeah, I mean, causing social issues marketing is it's just so important in these businesses that why should you come down because whether you're a business or a nonprofit, you can enhance your marketing strategy by creating and participating in genuine and impactful partnerships. And this is the place to do that. This is the place to network with peeps. Peeps like like us, peeps that live eat and breathe it. So it would be wonderful to have you join us, I hope that many of our listeners will come down. And, you know, I wanted to talk a little bit about what exactly happened at this event. Like, what am I going to experience as I walked through the door? What am I going to see? Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 15:19
I will talk a bit about that. I'm just going to let you know if you've just tuned into our show, you're listening to the business of giving podcast sponsored by the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, as well as sold up, sold up. And it's channel partners are providing complimentary solar to local charities supporting for Hope link transitional housing properties, solar to feed pets of the homeless Volunteers of America and opportunity village, their founder sits on the board of Nevada Conservation League. So number one sola is going to be there ha Maria, we're looking forward to that. That's one thing that they're going to see when they when they come to the event,

Unknown Speaker 15:59
we're going to be acknowledging and congratulating their their support of this platform. We're super excited they are walked the walk and talk the talk. It's it's just a pleasure to see the work that they do. And they really do exemplify cause marketing for sure. Yeah,

Speaker 3 16:17
and it's one of the wonderful things about all of this Maria the the opportunity that we have to meet more and more people who are engaged in this work and seeing the way that they go about it. And so when you come to the event, as you had asked right before, I had made those announcements there, when you come to our event, I think you get to see cause marketing and action. Just because of you'll see the volunteers that are running around, you're going to see people conducting business, you're going to see a nonprofit organization with a vendor table and a for profit organization with a vendor table. And you'll see those vendors collaborating with one another, you'll even see other nonprofit organizations that collaborate with one another. And that was something that I learned, as I got more into this work, I always thought that just like in the business community that the nonprofit organizations would collaborate a lot, because it seems like they've all got their specialties, the things that they do, and that they would work with each other to fill the spaces that specific nonprofits could fill. But I I learned as I got into the community more of that that's not always necessarily true, and that the nonprofit organizations don't necessarily network a lot, this event gives them an opportunity to do that. So you will see the engagement, I think that that's the biggest thing that you'll take away from attending this event, Maria is you're going to see engagement on so many levels. And you when you talk about walking the walk and talking the talk, the amount of things that get donated from from businesses for the silent auction in the raffle, you'll see a table full of prizes for the auction because our proceeds from that are going to be going to the nonprofit organization and we get the generosity of this Las Vegas community, you get to see that. And I when people think of Vegas, a lot of times I know Maria, you everybody thinks about what goes on on the strip. And I know that that's a big part of the culture of this town. But there's so much more you're going to get to see this community engaged in in a big give back event. It's that's those are the types of things that you'll experience at businesses with heart, the 10th edition.

Unknown Speaker 18:46
So I think that my takeaway from what you're describing, and the exciting thing about inviting all of our listeners is that you'll be able to see these synergies, but you'll also be able to see folks exploring affinity and parody and collaboration. And, you know, one of the most cool things about causes cause marketing is that you can differentiate your brand, and that's actually one of the tenants of the chamber. But that provides you and your business thought leadership, and that's priceless.

Speaker 3 19:21
Yes, it is Maria and the differentiation. I mean, and there's another one of the pieces that I think you've you've helped me with in this time that we work together is showing businesses, how you really can make yourself stand out as a business in this community. I mean, when you look at a soul up when you look at a multi pure, which is another business that came on and they had a fantastic story. It was great having them in the studio, and I know we've got plenty of others that we're going to be bringing onto this podcast, but when you you see how they they understand that their path Shin for giving back to their community is also something that drives the success of their business as well. So they can feel good about the types of things that they're doing as a business, because they know that it is all about contribution and value on on different levels, not just the economic value. And so for us as a chamber, again, educating small business people about these principles and being able to utilize them is that's what we want. We that's how we went. And of course, we want businesses to be more successful as well, we're coming out of COVID. sort of coming out of COVID. Anyway. And no, we're we took big hits in the business community, a lot of businesses were lost as a result of that. And we also lost a lot of nonprofit organizations. I'm sure you are. Did you? Have you noticed that Maria, the amount of nonprofits that we lost as a result of, of COVID? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 20:58
of course, because donations dried up, and events dried up, and all of those initiatives dried up, because we were all stuck at home. But I mean, this just begs the value of coming down to this event, and re igniting and plugging into a, you know, this opportunity to network among businesses and community partners together and and see what comes out of it. I mean, the consumer is super picky these days. And if you're disingenuous, you're going to be in big trouble. And if you think about if I can buy a product that's going to save a local pet from euthanization, versus not guess which one I'm going to buy plugins, learn about the community partners that you may not know about, and other businesses that are like minded. And

Speaker 3 21:49
our guest for next week on this show is nonprofit MVP. It's a developing television show that we're going to be featuring on the show next week, they'll actually be there Maria, and they're going to be filming some footage for their upcoming show that is, also is going to be a great contribution to the community, you could actually maybe be a part of a big TV show that I think is going to be extremely successful. Wouldn't that be fun?

Unknown Speaker 22:19
Yeah, it's gonna be super fun. And, and the whole point of the of the show is to infuse excellence, and to fill the gap for nonprofits where they lacked skill. So it's super exciting.

Speaker 3 22:34
Yeah. One other thing when you asked about what they'll actually experience being at the event, Maria, just great question, because that opens up like Pandora's, right? So many things, you making me think about what we do at these events. This is going to be the first time that we've ever done an award ceremony at a businesses with heart of it. And we are going to name a cause marketer of the year, a cause Marketing Business of the Year and a supporting nonprofit organization of the year. So though we last couple of events that we've done, we've been leading up to this. And we want this to become a part of the fabric of this event that we do once a year, we like to actually do it every six months, and we're planning our next event for March of 2024. But our summer, our fall version of the event, we want this to become a part of what we do, it's going to be an ongoing award ceremony that will do at all the businesses with heart events, giving recognition to people who are going the extra mile in the principles and practicing the principles of cause marketing. So you'll also be a part of the this for the first time, there's some some great people that are going to receive an award for all the hard work that they've contributed to the community. So you'd want to come out to to experience that as well.

Unknown Speaker 23:57
Well, and I think exemplifies that, you know, this is Vegas, and it's, this is a there's a lot going on here. But you can come down to this event and have an immersive interactive experience. See activations that if you don't really get caught up marketing, will certainly enlighten you. Yes,

Speaker 3 24:16
and you'll get to see yours truly. And you're gonna be there, aren't you? Maria, I know you are going to try your best to show up. Yeah, so you'll get to actually see us in person. For those of you who've only heard our voices on the air, we will be there and it'll go oh, we're also going to be having the streaming version of the business of giving podcast as well. So there will be a studio set up in the space. And if you are in business or someone who's attending you can actually be a part of that podcast that will be streaming across all of our social media platforms. We really want to give the attendees lots of opportunities to engage in the things that we are doing as a as a church. chamber and because the nonprofit community is so proactive, it's one of the things that I really enjoy about this is that you meet people like Maria, who are, she's a proactive person. And those are the types of experiences that we like to create at these businesses with heart events that we put on is that we want you to be proactive, we give you lots of opportunities to engage in things that you might not ever have engaged in before. So on so many levels. I think anyone will enjoy our event on September the 14th, from 4pm to 8pm at the space and yes, we you can go to cause marketing chamber.com, by the way, and there is a link for businesses with heart there. We still have opportunities for information about sponsorships is also on that page. So cause marketing chamber.com for more information. And for you, Maria in your cars, marketing, consulting, is there anything specifically that you're working on right now that you'd like the community to know about? We know you're always contributing at a high level?

Unknown Speaker 26:11
Well, I'm actually working on all kinds of things. But I think, right now, my focus is on this, I want to, I really want to invite our community to come down and experience the value and the reward of cause marketing and enter join us at the chamber and learn how you can you know, infuse this into your business and if you're a nonprofit, come down and don't be frightened to take your mission lenses off and plug into the business community because they want to support you. Yes,

Speaker 3 26:45
it becoming a member of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce definitely gives you more access Maria, that's an excellent point to be able to learn these principles on an ongoing basis. And that was why we move to this next level of creating a chamber of commerce from the business says with heart events was because we wanted to give people an ongoing education in how to implement these principles into their lives. So yes, becoming a member of the chamber which you can do also by visiting our website cause marketing chamber.com there's information on the website as well about that. Well, we are near the end of this edition of the business of giving podcast and as always Maria so value that your contribution to this show your your enthusiasm and your knowledge and how can our audience get in contact with the cause marketing consultant Maria Perez?

Unknown Speaker 27:41
Well, they can come to our events on the 14th. But if you can't make it and you want to discuss cause marketing strategy with me, I'm car coach Maria and I can be reached at Maria at cause marketing consultant.com.

Speaker 3 27:58
We welcome all of you to follow the business of giving in the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce on our social media platforms. And to tune in to this podcast every Sunday at 7:30am at K U N. V 91.5. The business of giving podcast was brought to you by soul UPS underwriting of our series Yes, we encourage you all to come out tune in to us for our show. Next week. We're going to have nonprofit MVP, an emerging television show in the studio and we're going to be preparing for our event the next day. So stay tuned. We'll see you next week. And as always, give and do business for good. See you soon.

Unknown Speaker 28:57
Feel the weight of the world on my shoulder. As I'm getting older your people get older. Most of us only care about money.

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