The Business of Giving

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a k u and v studios original program.

Unknown Speaker 0:03
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

Unknown Speaker 0:29
what's wrong with the world Maamar people live in live thank god Oh, mom. I think the whole row 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. Our organization brings businesses and nonprofit organizations together to create synergistic relationships that benefit the community. With the business of giving podcast we bring these two pillars of the community really valuable sectors together to create the harmony that is beneficial to society as a whole. And of course, each of the different sectors. If you'd like to learn more about what we do at the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, 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, soul up.com Today's show is going to be a bit unique. For those of you who listen to this show regularly, I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to bring people into the studio to interview them about different things be a traditional business or a nonprofit organization. That is my background is in journalism and talking to people and hearing their stories is something that's absolutely fascinating. For me, however, every once in a while, I like to do a show where I do a monologue platform. And that is me talking about a specific topic or just something that's on my heart this particular day. And as I was getting up today and thinking about what I wouldn't like to share with all of you this week, I decided I'd the theme of this show today would be a cause marketing, actually a cause marketers journey. Because that's what I am is the founder and executive of the cause marketing chamber, I now consider myself to be a cause marketer. And it has been an amazing journey that I've been on. That's brought me to the point of being on the show with all of you and on a weekly basis, sharing the incredible stories of these businesses and nonprofits as well as the work that I get to do with many businesses and nonprofit organizations, day to day through the cause marketing chamber. But I'm going to share some of my story with all of you today. My journey as a cause marketer actually began back in 2008. I run a public relations and marketing company called classy communications. And in 2008, was when we got the business started. For those of you who were around at that time, those were some very interesting times in the history of this country in the world, we were in the middle of a really challenging time economically. And I had started to develop a business plan for classic communications in 2007. And things weren't quite as bad in 2007, as they were in 2008. But as the New Year rolled out, we were having a lot of challenges in the economically but I was really determined to get this business up and running. I felt that there was a lot of value that I could provide for businesses, but really more specifically businesses at that time, in terms of helping them get the word out about what they did, through great stories, as well as a lot of the marketing platforms that are were just starting to emerge at that time. Social media was really just becoming a thing back in 2008. One of the challenges that I encountered when I got my business started was because we were in these challenging economic times. It was difficult to get businesses to spend money on marketing and PR was which was something that I was really not prepared for. I did feel prepared to be able to offer great services to them. What I learned from that experience was when times get tough, a lot of businesses start to trim the fat, which is a natural thing that you need to do some time there's a business. Keeping your costs low is a really effective tool that can help you to weather difficult times. What I discovered, though, that there were a lot of businesses and where they cut their budgets was in their marketing And then their public relations, which meant that as I was approaching them being new, relatively in business and not having created a strong reputation in the community, approaching these businesses, and so many of them, were saying, hey, we'd love to use you guy, we think you can really deliver on what you say you can deliver on. But well, you know, we're, we're strapped, these are tough times, people aren't spending business with us. And so we can't spend money with you. We can't spend spend money that we don't have with you. When you get in positions like that, as an entrepreneur where you have to pivot and make adjustments, and really quickly I started to get an understanding of what my environment was going to be like, as I launched this business, I decided that I was going to have to go a different route. And the decision that I made was that I would reach out to some of these nonprofit organizations in town, I've always been a person who has had a big affinity for charitable works. And, yeah, it's just something that I was really bred with them. I know, my father was really, really big into charity. And growing up, he instilled some some values in me that were, that have really stuck with me throughout my life. And so I had the seed of giving back to the community planted in my mind, at a very young age, my mother is not so much on the charitable side through actually going out in the community and doing it but she's a very compassionate person that believes in helping others. So with that type of background, I've always had this seed for giving back to my community. And when the time came, I started this new business, I knew I was going to have to pivot. I figured, you know, maybe I could contribute to the lives of other people while I'm trying to get this business going. I know I can provide value. And so let me reach out to a few nonprofit organizations to see if they would be interested, and allowing me to help them get the word out about what they did. Surprisingly, from my perspective, there were many, many nonprofit organizations out there that needed my help. I just assumed that there were other PR and marketing firms out there who would be doing pro bono work. And there were there were some really reputable ones that were helping nonprofits. But what I discovered was the lesser known nonprofits, the ones that didn't have the big names generally did not draw, having a public relations or marketing company working with them, which was an excellent opportunity for me. One of the first nonprofit organizations I started working with as a PR person was in Nevada parents, encouraging parents. And this organization is a support group for the families of kids with learning disabilities, all different types of disabilities. I got to really become immersed in the community. And I saw the unity that the people who were a part of that community had, and it was just fascinating to see, the way that they work together sort of a support group, a lot of them there, the parents had children who had all types of mental disabilities and other disabilities, and they would all just come together to support one another. I got involved, spending a lot of time with them learning about the issues and challenges that they have. And I really believed in what the mission of this emerging nonprofit organization was all about. And I stepped in and started writing articles and press releases and blogs, social media launched during that time.

Unknown Speaker 8:42
Meloche at that time, but it really seemed to start to emerge around 2008 and 2009. And I got a lot of my experience that I have now having managed many social media accounts through the years, but I got a lot of my experience with parents encouraging parents, helping them with a lot of providing a lot of advice on ways that they could reach people through their social media, then they ended up with all the social media platforms. So I did a lot of different things with them. That was extremely enriching personally, even though it wasn't a financial thing. They weren't paying me to help them. I knew that the work that I was doing was definitely making a contribution to the community. And for me, there was a there was an enrichment that I was receiving, also just being around as I had mentioned before the environment and how positive and supportive they were and, and seeing some of these press releases that I put out were successful, and they were getting more publicity for the things that they did. I even had the opportunity to set up an event with a Japanese acrobatic show that had come to town. It was called met Surrey and it played over at the old imperial palace for those of us who've lived in Vegas for a while we Remember the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino. There was a phenomenal, acrobatic show that was playing at the Imperial Palace and I had some connections with people actually I was working on because as a stagehand, I was doing some stuff backstage with Matt Surrey, by the way, it's always best whenever you're trying to make things happen, knowing someone always is a good way to start to move through the door. And so through working on that show myself, I knew the players, the people that were involved, and I saw an opportunity to be able to help this nonprofit organization, through my affiliation with the show. And they were just launching this show, as many of you have gone to the shows in Las Vegas in the very beginning, no one really knows about the shows, when they come to town, they were doing a certain amount of marketing. But as you'll see, a lot of times, when shows open early on, there's not a lot of people that are in the house for these shows. And so they were giving away lots of comp tickets to people and I started working with the people that were running that particular show, I said, Hey, I got a nonprofit organization, that is really a worthy one. And maybe we could do some type of a give back, they would come and participate in the show be a part of it. And it'd be great opportunity for you to get exposure in the community as being a business that contributes to nonprofit organizations. It's a win win all the way around. And they saw the wisdom in it. And they gave us many, many tickets. And we had this campaign where we brought the the members of the organization Nevada pet as well as their parents got the opportunity to come and see a show on the Las Vegas Strip. And everybody had such a great time I was there for the show, we took lots of pictures. And it ended up being, again, a great public relations opportunity for Matt Cerise being seen as as that type of business that gives back to the community that the kids had a great time. And they also got a lot of referral business out of it. Because as I mentioned, it was just an amazing show. And the people that attended it all went to their friends. And this is what you find. This is one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about cause marketing as a tool to improve your, your business or the profession that you're in. It's because of the good karma that you create when you do good. So what happened with that surgery is those people came for free. But what did they do, they reached out to all their friends. And they told them there's been some phenomenal show over at Imperial Palace you have to go. And they started getting business as a result of the free tickets that they gave away. Nevada prep was an organization that I did a lot of work with. But there were others along the line that I worked with. And it was just a phenomenal opportunity, just amazing to be able to help these nonprofits. And what I discovered from my own experience was, the more that I gave, the more that I got. Because I started to get more paying business on the traditional side of business as a direct result, in my opinion of the fact that I was putting all of that good mojo out into the community by helping Nevada Pepin these other nonprofits that I was affiliated with. My business started to grow. On the other side people. Number one, I had the examples of the work that I did, and I was able to show that to people who were in traditional business and they liked the work that I did things loosened up for the business owners over the next couple of years. And they started to spend more and more money with my company. And we we grew and expanded. But again, my business was built on the principles of cause marketing. And that is one of the reasons why I'm always so passionate when I'm on this show. And I'm interviewing people it's because I know that these principles work. I don't speak from the from the perspective of theory, I am proof I am evidence that the principles of cause marketing I've been in business with classic communications now for 16 years. And I've continued to do this work as well as a lot of work in the traditional business world. But the foundation of it was all created through give back and so I had just some amazing opportunities again very early in my business career as a publicist to see that being a philanthropic business person works every single time and for those of you who are just tuning in, you're listening to the business of giving podcast here at K u n v 91.5. Jazz and more. This show was sponsored by the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. This valuable show is made possible through the generosity of our series sponsor solar and energy solution and conservation company specializing in solar and battery storage systems, including solar panels to learn more about them, Seoul up.com also want to let you know that solar up in its channel partners are providing complimentary solar to local charities supporting for Hope link transitional housing properties, feeding pets of Volunteers of America and opportunity village. Their founder sits on the board of Nevada Conservation League. We've got a couple of events that are coming up but within the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce I wanted to share with you we're hosting the Kazim business education series event on Tuesday, March the 19th at 6pm. This is a free online event and we have a woman Her name is Heather Salkin. She's the co founder of SAF kin consulting, she's going to bring her expertise to the table offering valuable insights into the art and science of securing grants for businesses and nonprofit organizations. Topics she will discuss include where to look for grants and ensuring a good fit preparation tips for grant writing and technical tips and common mistakes in grant writing. If you want to learn more about this event that we're going to be hosting cause marketing chamber.com. And over the last couple of months, I've been talking about something that we're extremely excited about as well that is the cause and business cruise, it's the first annual event that we're going to do on the water, it's going to be October the 19th. Through the 26th 2024, we're going to cruise to the Hawaiian Islands, it's going to be a great opportunity for you to network with giving professionals we're going to do service work as is specifically we're going to do some service work over on the island of Maui. That's one of our stopovers during the cruise. As many of you know, the Island of Maui was devastated by fires back in the fall of 2023. And a lot of people are still having a hard time of it or they're in Maui, they're displaced don't have homes, we're going to do some service work while we're over there. And of course, we're going to enjoy the experience of being in the Hawaiian Islands for six days and seven nights, we'd love to have you join us. If you would like on this cruise proceeds from the cabins by the way that our purchase for the crews will be donated to nonprofit organizations. Hey, if you want to learn more about that info at cause marketing chamber.com or cause marketing chamber.com.

Unknown Speaker 17:39
And again, for those of you who are just tuning in on this particular show, I'm taking you on the journey of a cause marketer with my talk today. And I had been mentioning that I was able to launch my public relations and advertising career as a direct result of doing pro bono work working with nonprofit organizations and that these principles that we talk about week after week can work for any business or any nonprofit organization. I had another great opportunity in 2011. That was life changing. And it's actually responsible for me sitting here in front of this microphone right now speaking to all of you about the topic of cause marketing. I had a nonprofit that I was working with the name of it escapes me it's a nonprofit that actually isn't in existence anymore. But they had a great platform. And the platform was teaching young people martial arts. So from the perspective of self defense, this was a I believe it was early 2011. And for those of you who were around at that time, that a time when when bullying really started to be in the forefront of our consciousness. And this nonprofit organization was set up to teach young kids how to use martial arts as a way to stop the bullying models representing them and I had the opportunity to book them on a radio show. And through going on that radio show, I was connected with someone who offered me the opportunity to create my own radio shows really interesting the way that it happened. I was just in the studio with his nonprofit organization, supporting them making sure that they were able to share their message and through the work that we did that particular day someone had asked me if I'd be interested in doing a radio show about public relations. I had never done radio before. done lots of things behind the scenes helping other people with bookings but didn't know anything about hosting a radio show. Someone saw potential in me and asked me if I'd like to do a show I started doing the show. It was called PR connections it still is I've been still doing the show for the last decade longer than a decade. and opportunities were created again as a direct result of doing for others and supporting the success of children. Through the work I was doing backing that nonprofit organization. And so here I am 13 years later still on the air. As an I know, it was just good karma that I received as a result of doing that pro bono work for the nonprofit organization. In 2015, we started hosting these events, I've talked about this quite a bit on broadcasts. Over the last couple of years that we've been doing the show here, we started hosting these events called businesses with heart in 2015. And that was really the precursor to what is now the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. With those events, we were really focused and still are really focused on providing value for for businesses and nonprofit organizations. And my PR firm hosted this event that we put together, it came together in the most miraculous way. It was designed as a way for the business community to network for us to feature a nonprofit organization to bring the community together. And everything just worked out phenomenally well, the College of Southern Nevada was generous enough to provide a facility for us to host the event, we had a caterer that came in and brought us food at no charge. People had a chance to network, they bought tables, we did a lot of education about cause marketing and business and nonprofit organizations. Just the complete win win win. And from my perspective, I know they a lot of times we talk about the wind being on two sides. But when we did this event, there were wins probably on five sides. It was just it really stimulated something in me from that experience. Having that philanthropic background already getting my business started. And now being introduced to this concept of cause marketing really doing it at the grassroots level, bringing both of these pillars of the community together for an event where everyone benefited proceeds from the event went to the nonprofit, the nonprofit was called Hearts alive village, it was a very young nonprofit organization at that time, I don't know maybe a year old and they were just getting going. And they are one of the success stories actually, in the nonprofit community. Now they've, of course, they've got their animal shelter, it's over on Rainbow they have I think they even have a veterinarian clinic. Yes, they have a veterinarian clinic. Now it's been amazing for me to watch the growth of this nonprofit organization. And just to know that we had a small part in getting the word out about the fact that they existed. Every time we hosted one of these events. Over the next couple of years, they were our featured nonprofit. And I can't tell you how many stories I heard about people leaving one of our events and going directly over to hearts alive village and adopting a dog or a cat is just really gave me and the others because there were a lot as I talk about all these different things that I personally have been working on throughout the years related to cause marketing. It's never just been me, there's always been a team of people who have been engaged in this work. And so as we came together and we put on these events, we saw that there was a bigger picture. What we did over the next couple of years is we would host an event about every six months we get together everyone would have a great time, we had different venues that would sponsor these events. And then everyone would go away and be learn more or know more about cause marketing. And then we would do it all over again. The reason why we created the chamber was we wanted to develop something that was more sustainable, where on a long ongoing basis, we would be able to be a resource for the for profit and nonprofit sectors. And that's really the basis of the rollout of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. We started in 2019. And here we have been chugging away over the last five years just growing and and connecting with a lots of nonprofits and for profit businesses and really showing how the relationships between the two can be just so beneficial. And we had some success stories on the for profit side early on that I want to share with you. With a person who was a loan officer this guy was his name is Joe Whitten Weiler, Joe, if you're out there, I hope everything is going great with you. Joe's a person who really understands the value of the good karma that you can get as a result of good Think back to your community. Joe started a campaign, when he got affiliated with the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. He said, Okay, I've got this nonprofit that I'm a big fan of the nonprofit was called Happy Feet, they were and still are a nonprofit that provides shoes for children who can't afford them, a great organization that helps a lot of children to have shoes. And he said, I'm going to make a commitment today that I will donate 10% of every loan that I close as a loan officer to this nonprofit organization. To prove that these principles work, and Joe, of course, I believe that the year was 2019. And in 2019, Joe had his most successful year ever, as a loan officer as a direct result. And I believe it, the fact that every loan that he closed, he was contributing to the lives of others. Those types of examples, and there are so many others that I can share, I've really just shared my own example, my own business on the Public Relations and Marketing side has dramatically increased as a result of this niche that I've been practicing. And for many years, people begin to know you as that person, when you decide that you're going to use the principles of cause marketing. The biggest benefit of doing that is that you've carved a unique niche in industry. And there are people out there I know for a fact, who will deliberately do business with you because you are someone who cares about your community and the benefits for the nonprofits are unbelievable as well. I hope you enjoyed the journey that I took you on through my experience as a cause marketer. There are many other stories that I'm going to tell on future shows and I just am so passionate and value, this particular sector, the fact that I was introduced to it has been life changing. And I hope for those of you out there who are in business or who run a nonprofit or are considering running a nonprofit, that you will learn more about what we do at the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, I believe that we can be a great resource to help steer you in the right direction so that you can have a business that really has an impact on the community in from a financial perspective as well as an impact in making the world a better place in our community a better place.

Unknown Speaker 27:34
Oh, I want to remind you all you can listen to the business of giving podcast on Spotify, Apple podcast and Amazon music, to listen to us the business of giving Tran zester dot F M. I also invite you all to check out our social media sites and I want to welcome you to tune in to the business of giving podcast every Sunday at 7:30am on K you in V 91.5, FM, jazz and more. The business of giving podcast was brought to you by soul UPS underwriting of our series. I hope you enjoyed my monologue today and I want to continue to encourage you to give and do business work.

Unknown Speaker 28:42
The weight of the world on my shoulder. As I'm getting older your people gets older. Most of us only care about money.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai