After years of attention, interest and fanfare, earlier this year Pepsi let its much-vaunted social impact initiative, the Pepsi Refresh Project, quietly fizzle away. Today, if you try to find the project's website, www.refresheverything.com, you'll be redirected to the Pepsi brand site, where you'll encounter the amped-up marketing blitz, "Live for Now," a heavily entertainment-focused campaign that puts Pepsi back on familiar ground: the glitz and glam of pop culture.

The holiday season is upon us. Is your nonprofit ready? I've heard it called the giving season, some just call it year-end, but you need to have a strategy, because everyone knows that year end can make you or break you for the whole year. On average, charities receive 41% of their total revenue for the entire year during the giving season. I'm sure you know that already, so the question is do you have a game plan for 2012?

I recently experienced two epic customer service fails. Like many things in life, we can all learn a lot when things go awry-that is, if we pay attention.

I'm as far as you can get from an "I hate pink" critic of the breast cancer cause-marketing phenomenon, but I am frustrated by the number of bad to mediocre campaigns that emerge each October. These "me too" efforts damage the credibility of companies doing an outstanding job of mixing cause with commerce.

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Blogging is not just a hobby anymore. Blogs have become a powerful tool -- they can increase your brand awareness, let you share knowledge and establish yourself or your organization as an expert, and generally grow your donor base.

If you are like me, you were voraciously watching the London Olympics last month and are still probably sad that it's over. Watching so many sporting events, featuring athletes from different countries, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I always watch sports through my marketer's lens and as a result, examine slogans, uniforms, and ad campaigns with a critical eye. My friends watching with me may not appreciate my verbal analysis of such things during the action, but I can't help myself.

Finding cures. Educating young people. Fighting hunger. Caring for those in need. It's not surprising that the nearly universal appeal of those classic causes make them the focus of the overwhelming majority of cause-marketing campaigns.

When I was writing the Children's Miracle Network Telethon, I struggled with the question of how much to ask people to give. It was received wisdom that we should ask even for small donations; $5 or less, for instance. Or as we often put it, "anything you can give."

Not all agencies are created equal. I'm sure you know this, and I'm sure you've seen a wide range in the quality of work produced by various agencies. But as one who knows how a good, quality search campaign should look, I thought I'd point out things you should look for. At nonprofits, every cent counts, so you need to ensure that the work you're paying for is working for you. Keep reading to learn how to tell whether the agency you have creating your search campaigns is doing well, or if you "better shop around." Don't have an agency? …