State Farm Made Me Cry (I Bet You Will, Too)

Last week’s blog was about cause marketing. This week’s blog is somewhat similar, but is about a company (hint: the name is in the title of the blog) that is aligning their brand with the idea of community involvement.

• First, you need to watch this video—all 2 minutes of it. I mean it, watch it all the way through.
• Second, I don’t have State Farm, but it makes me want to have State Farm (that might be exactly what they want).
• Third, this is a great example of how a commercial brand is coming to the table with a charitable-based approach to marketing.
• Fourth, there is an amazing line at the end of the video: “You can lift the weight of caring by doing.” I believe this line will speak to multiple generations, but most specifically, millennials. That is the point of my blog this week.

Before I get to my specific thoughts, let me say there’s a great article on this in AdAge. It talks about how they developed the campaign, and it’s a great read. It’s a great concept and based on helping people connect to volunteer opportunities in their geographic areas. It lets you put in your zip code and your interest area (homelessness, poverty, education, animals, etc.) to get connected to opportunities.

This is the kind of thinking that the nonprofit industry needs to have to connect with millennials.

Just this week, I was in a conversation about how nonprofits can really focus on building relationships with millennials. In that conversation, I expressed my view that part of the trick to working with millennials is being able to fit into their life. In other words, if you are inviting a millennial to join your mission, you will fail immediately.

Millennials have their own thoughts on helping the world. They have their own vision on how to change the world. They want to spend their energy (and eventually money) solving a problem. Therefore, if you are a nonprofit, you must show them how your mission, your work and your progress actually fits into their plan. In a sense, your goal is to position your organization’s offering as a way to help the millennials achieve their philanthropic and/or volunteering goals.

Millennials are between the ages of 20 and 36 this year, and they are the largest generation with 92 million. And, half of the millennial generation is already between the ages of 25 and 36. If you are reading this and saying “20-year-olds have no money to give,” you're right, but they’re not going to give you money at the beginning anyway. This is exactly why I love this video concept.

The message in this video speaks to “acting upon your concerns for the world”. Millennials care. Millennials want to make the world better. A certain segment of millennials may not have much money (yet), but now is the time to engage them with opportunities that help them make real change in the world.