Critical things you should have paid attention to in 2012 (but probably didn't).

Tis the season for giving! Hopefully, everyone is having a successful year-end fundraising campaign, and since fundraising is top-of-mind right now (when is it ever not?), it got me thinking about alternative giving sites. You may have come across them before in your work -- third-party sites that take donations for various causes and nonprofits. Some donors prefer these sites, where they can go to just one site to browse different causes from around the world. In that light, I thought I'd review a couple alternative giving sites that I've come across or heard of in my work.

Everyone's shopping for the holidays, and corporations are no different. 'Tis the season of corporate gift giving to employees. Many of my friends have received chocolate, baked goods, gift cards and other items that are nice tokens of thanks -- but, to me, they are also, well, predictable and somewhat generic. Instead of giving employees the usual, I like the idea of charitable giving for the holidays because it makes a gift more personal and impactful. Charitable gifts or actions go beyond the gift giver and the recipient.

Charity runs, walks, rides, triathlons, hikes, climbs, swims and other peer-to-peer fundraising events are a multibillion dollar business, according to the annual surveys conducted by our team at the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council.

I was reminded of these sorts of relationships by a press release issued by the Illinois State Bar Association, which recently announced a goal to provide 1 million meals to needy Illinoisans. They'll do this by hitting up bar association members and their law firms for donations of food and money, which will be distributed to food banks across Illinois.

Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day! Now that you've all recovered from your tryptophan turkey comas, I hope you're all geared up and ready for the giving season. (Just starting out? Check out last month's post for year-end best practices.) But before we head into the biggest time of year for nonprofits, I thought it might be a good idea to make sure everyone has their bases covered as far as search engine optimization (SEO) goes.

I'm enjoying the silence. No more bad political ads, irritating phone calls, giant postcards that won't even fit in the mail slot. No more obnoxious Facebook posts or poorly targeted digital ads. To paraphrase "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!": the one thing I hated this election season was noise: "Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!"

My travels during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October took me to a suburban Ulta Beauty store. There was a great deal of cause marketing going on there, none of it... not surprisingly... aimed at a someone like me.

In the aftermath of Super Storm Sandy, businesses from banks to baseball teams have mobilized in support of storm victims by lending their assets to nonprofit organizations.

Doing good while doing well is all the rage. It seems every brand has some form of cause marketing or charity affiliation. But not everyone knows how to use that involvement to increase the engagement of their customers or employees. So, if increased engagement is top of mind for you, what follows are three key considerations to help organizations commit to a cause-marketing relationship.