On my last trip to the neighborhood Harris Teeter, I was pleasantly surprised by a promotion at the check-out counter: an “add-on” donation to support our troops. Now, I have been encountering these cash-register donation requests for YEARS and I never bite. (And I’m a bleeding heart!) But this message is timely and pertinent, and it was a no-brainer, so I gave the max of $5 without hesitating.

Point-of-purchase donations have been around forever (think penny cans at the Five-and-Dime store, and the Children’s Miracle Network balloon stickers at various fast food joints), and for the most part they are quite effective. It’s a simple, feel-good, impulse “purchase.”

According to the 2011 CECP Giving In Numbers report, corporate partners have the power to generate significant funds through development campaigns “at the register.” The median cost to run a “register” campaign is $80,000, and the average campaign haul is about $3M.

With many local and national consumer-facing businesses making this kind of commitment every year, that adds up to some serious annual investments in the non-profit sector.

Walter Isaacson and Sally Bedell Smith

Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin biographies, the other night said at a book forum sponsored by APCO: You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to get something done; you just have to be the person who knows how to get things done.

He learned that lesson in researching Franklin, who was the guy in the room who got a country done a couple of centuries ago. Isaacson said today’s politicians could learn a lesson from that, bringing the Franklin teaching to a lesson for today’s leadership.

His message was reinforced at the event by fellow author Sally Bedell Smith, who penned the popular biography of Queen Elizabeth. The two authors taught me and the other members of their audience a good lesson.

“The virtue of duty has been lost,” said Isaacson, commenting on the current political climate. Smith pointed out that Queen Elizabeth’s sense of duty was imposed upon her at the age of 10, when she was told that she would one day rule England. Probably made the future queen grow up quickly.

We can argue whether leaders are born with or handed leadership roles, but clearly it is creativity and curiosity that fuels the genius of the best leaders.

APCO co-sponsored the event with 826DC, a non-profit that teaches similar lessons to inner-city students.

I didn’t expect that the lessons learned from the authors’ research would be such a poignant message for today’s leaders. As a head of HR, it was a lesson I will carry to my daily responsibilities of the characteristics we look for in employees – are you the person in the room who can get things done?

In the end, though, a product that donates 100 percent of net profits to countries fighting AIDS, malaria, measles and warfare won out – showing that consumers across the economic spectrum support products that make a social impact.

Here’s a video about the winning entry and a brandchannel writeup of the contest.

It will be interesting to see whether Walmart and other competitor merchants take note of Humankind’s success and introduce more cause products into their assortments. In the end, it will happen if customers demand it – so speak up!

I like this plan for several reasons:

1. It acclimates lawyers to pro bono service before they can hang out a shingle. Fifty hours may not be enough time to instill the pro bono ethic in a future lawyer, but it will introduce each of them to the process and help recalibrate expectations over time. The upcoming generation of lawyers will all have pro bono experience to draw upon.
2. It addresses a specific need in the state. The legal aid system cannot keep up with the demand for free or low-cost services. And the people seeking these services are already in financially precarious situations, so they need competent counsel and an advocate who can help them navigate the complicated system. There are budding lawyers who need practical experience. This is a simple, pragmatic solution.
3. New York is one of the toughest state bars to pass and one of the most coveted memberships. If they can make it work there, this can work anywhere. (And yes, that is a nod to Sinatra.) The Empire State sets the standard, and I hope to see more states following their lead in the next few years.

Chalk this up as a win for the pro bono movement.

Nice work, New York!

The seafood counter is looking pretty bright! But this briny little tale didn’t prepare me for Burger King’s announcement just a few days later. Burger King made a commitment that all of its eggs and pork will come from cage-free chickens and pigs by 2017. Yeah – Burger King. Feeling a little Chipotle heat, perhaps?

Whoever said peer pressure was bad? At this rate, if companies continue this rapid-fire one-upmanship (with, of course, a dash of new regulations thrown in here and there), in the next five years, our grocery shelves and our restaurant menus will hardly be recognizable.

Anyone care to forecast the next headline?

Hence last month’s Budget included, alongside a modest reduction in the top rate of personal income tax, an emphasis on tightening tax loopholes available to wealthy people, particularly in relation to stamp duty on very expensive residential properties. It also included a new ceiling on tax relief for the wealthy: from next year, tax relief above £50,000 in any one year will be capped at 25 percent of income in that year. This would limit, say, a person earning $10 million from claiming tax reliefs of more than £2.5 million; or a person earning £500,000 from claiming tax reliefs of more than £125,000. At first glance, at least to those 99 percent of Britons who earn much less (the UK’s median income is £25,000 a year), this seemed to provide still generous room for tax relief to high-income earners.

However, in the past few weeks, a major campaign against the tax relief changes for the rich has come from a surprising quarter:  the UK’s non-profit sector. Leaders of the nation’s arts institutions, major health and children’s charities and umbrella bodies for the charitable sector have called on the government to exclude charitable donations from the ceiling or bear responsibility for a dramatic fall in large-scale private philanthropy. They have also pointed out that this outcome would sit very uneasily with the prime minister’s “Big Society” vision which promotes volunteerism and philanthropy. The tax relief ceiling, they say, is already leading wealthy donors to rethink and reduce planned major philanthropic gifts, thus undermining sustainable financing for many charities.

As members of his Conservative Party and coalition government joined the outcry, the prime minister has now signalled a possible rethink, through a “formal consultation” with charities and philanthropists. Following upon other political rows over various taxes in the Budget, and with Britain’s economy apparently entering a double-dip recession, “cracking down on philanthropy” is one more negative headline the prime minister could do without. There is considerable anger in some quarters at the government’s clumsy equation of wealthy philanthropists and tax avoidance. At the same time, there is unease that major philanthropic donations and the charities receiving them could be at such grave risk from even marginal changes in tax relief rules for the wealthy. The subliminal message of the charity sector’s campaign is that if tax relief for the wealthy is squeezed, philanthropy would be the first item on which wealthy people would cut back. And so far, few wealthy donors have spoken out on the issue. Maybe that’s why something seems lost in this debate – the joy of giving for its own sake perhaps, rather than as simply an accounting exercise.

As a former resident of Alabama, I was dismayed to see the news of last April’s devastating tornadoes in my home state.

And as an alumnus of Auburn University, I was proud to see fellow alum and Heisman Trophy-winner Bo Jackson working to make a difference to those affected.

A year ago, an outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes killed more than 200 people in Alabama. This week, Bo Jackson will trade his football pads for a bicycle as he launches his “Bo Bikes Bama” charity ride across the state to raise money for tornado relief. He’ll be joined along the way by sports figures including Lance Armstrong, Ken Griffey, Jr., and downhill skier Picabo Street. Ultimately, he hopes to raise $1 million for tornado relief in the state.

Individuals can ride along for a donation of $200, and Bo’s bikes will be auctioned off to raise additional funds. The ride is being supported by a number of national and local companies. You can follow along with Bo’s ride on Twitter, @BoBikesBama.

In Alabama, football is king. Bo knows this, and his charity bicycle tour is a pitch perfect way take the state’s most passionate pastime and use it to bring national awareness and support to the families and communities affected by disaster.

And as we say in Auburn, “War Eagle” to that!

Many APCO consultants devote personal time to the causes that matter most to them—including coaching a youth sports team, cleaning up parks, taking in rescue dogs and handling press relations for the local homeless shelter.

As a company, community engagement is very important to us, and we have created the APCO Gives Back program to manage the commitments we make. One of the largest components of this program is APCO’s pro bono program grant initiative. In 2010, we launched the grant program and have supported 27 clients with more than one million dollars in communication services in the first two years. We are currently working with seven pro bono clients in 2012, including Seeds of Peace, Clinton Global Initiative, Grassroots Business Fund and the Nature Conservancy.

Kudos to my colleagues for sharing their time and talents, and happy National Volunteer Week to everyone!

• The lines between risk management, issues management, brand management and corporate responsibility continue to blur. More and more, companies are addressing issues in a collaborative manner, across the enterprise in both proactive and reactive situations.
• Empowering employees as ambassadors for your brand is crucial. While most communication efforts are externally focused, internal communication is also vital to success.
• Supply chains are this year’s front page issue, particularly for the IT industry. As keynote speaker Brad Smith, general counsel and EVP of Microsoft said: “In business, you don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect.”
• Many companies talked about taking on a signature cause aligned with their business, enabling them to focus their resources with the aim of making systemic change, even in some cases coupling their other investments with relevant policy advocacy.
• With the multitude of corporate responsibility surveys, reports and awards available today, many are finding the more crowded landscape challenging to navigate. A common question was, “How do you evaluate the worthiness before spending time & resources on these?”
• “The old model of stakeholder management was defined by words like agitate, investigate and litigate. The new model should be defined by words like anticipate, collaborate, innovate, cooperate, communicate and educate.” – Ed Fox, Arizona Public Service
• Measurement continues to be a focus of discussion, with more people stating the importance of investing time and resources to measure not just outputs but outcomes and impacts.
• Interesting comment by Ernst & Young spoke regarding reporting: “numerator only” data is misleading—it’s important to have a context for your goals, objectives and progress.
• Compelling closing keynote speaker David Jones, author of “Who Cares Wins” noted that the world is moving from control (broadcasting your message) to collaboration (sharing and seeding your message with a web of stakeholders)—and we all need to adjust our approach accordingly.

The 2013 BCCCC will return home to Boston. We hope to see you there!

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We have an interesting Easter tradition in my (very large) family. It’s an egg-decorating contest that started 30+ years ago when my kindergarten-teacher mom pulled out all of her fun craft supplies out of storage and invited my twenty-something aunts and uncles to “decorate eggs” while we were waiting for supper. They turned the activity into a competitive sport and created “punny” eggs as commentary on pop culture and current events—similar to the WaPo’s annual Peeps contest. We’ve continued this tradition every year—you can get a sense of what movies, music and political themes were hot each year just by reviewing the photos of this contest.

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Which is why this clever Easter egg activity in London caught my eye. The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt features several hundred (fiberglass) eggs decorated by famous artists that are hidden around the city. (A few of my favs: the DVF eggs, the “birdie” golf ball egg, and “spring” by Irish artist Rebecca Campbell.)

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The idea is to find each egg and note the secret code word marked on that egg. Each time a person texts the code to the contest phone number, organizers make a donation to one of two designated UK charities: Action for Children and Elephant Family. Between the text-to-donate campaign and an auction of the actual eggs, organizers expect to raise more than £2 million. Each person who texts an egg code is eligible for the grand prize of a Diamond Jubilee Fabergé egg.

If you haven’t had the time to wander around London to find the eggs, they will all be on display in Covent Garden for a “Grand Eggstravaganza” starting April 3. And if you would like to have one of these works of art to keep, the auction is open through April 9.