Cause Marketing FOCUS > You're busy. Our blog, Cause Marketing FOCUS, helps you cut through the rhetoric and focus on the practical tips and ideas that can fuel your growth. Welcome!

Last week at the Run Walk Ride 2013 conference, I had the honor of hearing Julie Weiss, the Marathon Goddess, share her inspiring story. On St. Patrick's Day, she completed her 52nd marathon...in 52 weeks! She is running in honor of her father, Maurice Weiss, who passed away from pancreatic cancer. In her remarks at the conference, Julie shared that Maurice was her biggest fan and cheerleader. In earlier years, she tried 19 times to qualify for the Boston marathon but was unsuccessful in her pursuit. Maurice never stopped believing in her, and shortly after he lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, Julie won her entry to the marathon. And, a dream was born.

As you may know, corporate strategies including cause marketing, social good and corporate social responsibility are relatively new in the scheme of things. For example, the term “cause-related marketing” is attributed to the 1983 American Express Statue of Liberty Restoration project. Companies and causes are still chomping at the bit for hard evidence linking these types of strategies to return on investment (ROI) in order to justify approval of precious resources.  The following two reports can be added to your strategic cause partnership ROI arsenal.  Each makes a Cause marketing blog post: , one in the form of 4 specific experiments and the other in the form of a handy and attractive infographic.  Use these to your advantage when pitching strategic cause partnerships!

There are two great reasons to use the virtual pin board Pinterest for cause marketing:

1. Pinterest is growing like crazy! Check out this graph if you don't believe me. 11 million users in less than a year. 
2. Pinterest is attracting mainly women and moms, a key demographic for cause marketing.