Creating impact: bringing brand supporters into the equation

At EarthShare, we have the privilege of seeing collaborative partnerships in action every day between our nonprofit members and the business sector, with much more getting accomplished when they join hands. Partially in response to the needs of our own corporate partners, we implemented our Impact Award opportunity to help them build beneficial connections between their brand goals, their customers and the environmental causes relevant to both.

This works because EarthShare is uniquely positioned to connect its partners with a full spectrum of environmental issues, from land, water and wildlife conservation, to climate change and energy sustainability development, to the building of community parks and playgrounds.

With Garnier in 2011, this led to the discovery that customers of the beauty-products company cared deeply about organizations focused on protecting the planet’s water; the company then conveyed the impact its brand supporters’ participation had via online messaging. Similarly, we worked with green beauty brand EcoTools to empower its community of customers with determining the causes they wanted the company to support through its donation of 1 percent of annual revenue.

Impacts of the EcoTools Gives Back program are then conveyed on an interactive community wall to allow customers to comment and share.

The results: A deeper relationship between the green values inherent in the brands and what their consumers connect with, and more funding to support causes and program work that underscore those issues.

What do all of these collaborative relationships have in common?  The fact that the combined efforts of these teams continue to make gains in preserving land, conserving and protecting water, reducing waste, and caring for wildlife and habitat. At EarthShare, we support such equitable partnerships because we see firsthand the strength these collaborations provide in solving our charities' monumental challenges while inspiring employees, leaders and consumers to think sustainably and ethically.