By Emily Brewer

When the organization Share Our Strength first started looking for ways to make money, it didn't immediately realize the resources it had that were marketable to corporations.

Through fundraising, corporate licensing deals, sponsorships, affinity marketing and special events, the Washington-based organization now earns most of the money that it distributes to hundreds of hunger-fighting agencies.

"Nonprofit organizations need to do more than redistribute wealth," says Share Our Strength founder and executive director Bill Shore. "They need to create a different kind of wealth - one I call community wealth. It is something that is channeled back directly into the community."

One of the hunger organization's most popular events is an annual national food and wine benefit showcasing the wares of 7,000 of the nation's best chefs. From this one event, the organization has found several avenues of corporate funding:

• One cognac distributor pays $100,000 for the right to be there and have access to the chefs, who could stock their restaurants with the product.
• Calphalon, a Perrysburg, Ohio-based pots and pans manufacturer, markets a special Taste of the Nation pan, for which it directs $5 for every pan sold to Share Our Strength. This sort of affinity marketing links the corporation with an organization.
• The chefs at the events are so loyal to Share Our Strength that if the organization signs a contract with a winery, for instance, allowing them to use the organization's logo on their wine bottles, a majority of the chefs will stock that wine if $10 of every case goes back to Share Our Strength.

The secret, says associate director Debbie Shore, who founded the organization in 1984 with her brother, is thinking about what your organization can offer the company with which you partner to help it expand its bottom line. "It's appealing to their self-interests."

Share Our Strength has a logo that is recognized and respected, and that makes it attractive and profitable for corporations that align with the organization, she says.

Calphalon's sales of the pan have quadrupled since it aligned with the organization, making it a profitable relationship for both parties, Bill Shore says.

Besides their self-interest, corporations have a humanitarian angle and want to help organizations that service humanitarian causes, Debbie Shore says.

"At the end of the day, they're creating pots and pans," she says of Calphalon. "They want more."

The organization has grown through the years as the Shores discover what resources they have that are valuable to corporations.

In April, 1997, they created a for-profit consulting service that advises both nonprofits and corporations on how to look for and nurture leveraging opportunities. Community Wealth Ventures offers training sessions and one-on-one assistance to groups on how to use their assets to generate revenue for their organizations or the organizations they fund, Bill Shore says.

And while the Shores concede that not every organization has the power to raise community wealth the way theirs has, they believe more organizations could be doing it than are now.

Emily Brewer can be reached at
emilybrewer@mindspring.com