On any given day, a neighborhood Goodwill store can be a bustling center of commerce. Many come to the store looking for clothes. Others come looking for furniture. Some come to carefully search through every aisle hoping to find valuable antiques.
It’s easy to view Goodwill as a mere neighborhood thrift shop, but, in reality, it is an international bustling nonprofit organization that has a far greater impact on communities around the world than simply selling discounted goods.
As Natasha Young, the organization’s cause marketing leader, explains, “we use revenue from the sales of goods to fund our mission, and our mission is all about putting people back to work in the communities is which we live. We operate a number of workforce development programs which provide job training and support to people who need it.”
Goodwill’s core mission of helping people get the skills necessary to gain employment offers widespread benefits to communities. When a person has a job, they spend their income. The money they spend supports the local economy and keeps profits high for local businesses, which ensures that businesses will continue employing local community members as part of the workforce.
As stated earlier, Goodwill funds its job support efforts with the revenue from Goodwill stores. Word of mouth is not enough to keep these stores successful. Marketing is a huge factor in the success of the Goodwill organization. That’s where Young’s cause marketing skills come into play.
What is cause marketing? She explains it as, “working to elevate the cause of a nonprofit or a charity in partnership with the efforts of a for profit business.” In this form of marketing, nonprofits like Goodwill partner with regular for profit business for marketing campaigns. This marketing strategy provides maximum exposure for the message of the nonprofit organization.
Cause marketing benefits both the for-profit business as well as the nonprofit organization involved. Consumers today are more socially conscious than ever before. According to the results of a Cone Cause Evolution Survey, 87% of consumers say they would change their buying habits to support brands that have affiliated themselves with worthy charitable organizations. Millennials are an ever increasing demographic in the world of consumers, and millennials often demand that the business they support also support causes that better the world.
Young has three goals with cause marketing: “to raise the awareness of our mission at Goodwill with the general public, and to increase donation of goods to Goodwill stores and donation centers and to raise money.” Affiliation with business that already have extensive marketing efforts helps the Goodwill name to stay on the minds of consumers who could become donors.
All of these combined efforts lead to more funds and more volunteers to help as many community members as possible get the training they need to enter the workforce. You can support your community by donating to Goodwill stores or by volunteering your time either in the store or with the foundations job support efforts.
