The Story Behind RightCause
Despite just recently being founded, RightCause is a company with a concept and a purpose that have long been in the making. My passion for community involvement, creative problem solving, and innovative business development have led me down a slew of seemingly random paths. However, look a little deeper and you will see it was all just a map to RightCause.
I have always tried to stay active in my community; from my childhood home in New Hampshire, to my alma mater in Delaware, to current residence in New Jersey. Growing up, I regularly volunteered at the NHSPCA and participated in the Big Brother Big Sister and Rotary Youth Leaders programs. I truly enjoyed helping others and felt empowered by my fellow volunteers. So in 2008, I partnered with a classmate to plan, advertise and run our high school’s annual Empty Bowls charity event. The event successfully brought together community members, local business owners and fellow students to raise money for local food pantries, as well as our high school nurses’ fund. At the time, the event just seemed like a natural progression of my volunteer work. However, from my current perspective as the founder of RightCause, it is clear that Empty Bowls was my very first RightCause project.
After high school, I attended the Alfred Lerner College of Business at the University of Delaware. Studying Operations Management, Marketing and Advertising led me to a variety of internship programs, but it was the time I spent with Ogilvy & Mather and Frito-Lay that really struck a chord.
“I founded RightCause with one goal in mind: To be a steward of good in the name of people, planet and profit. That’s why I chose to guide businesses in developing authentic brand citizenship and facilitate valuable partnerships amongst the community.”
While interning at Ogilvy & Mather in Australia, I worked on IBM’s 2010 Smarter Planetcampaign. The campaign was newly implementing a multi-platform strategy across marketing, sales channels, research and other disciplines, to promote IBM’s smarter systems. I spent my summer researching and analyzing case studies that highlighted IBM’s contributions to building smarter systems, businesses, and communities. Learning the measurable benefits of IBM’s brand citizenship and how Ogilvy & Mather shared those success stories with the world was my first real glimpse of cause marketing. It was a campaign like I had never seen before - blending purpose, creativity, innovation and sincerity for both business and society.
After Ogilvy, I interned at Frito-Lay (a PepsiCo subsidiary) to help streamline warehouse inventory and contribute to Pepsico’s sustainability initiatives. Shifting from an ad agency to a snack food warehouse seems unorthodox, but hear me out. At Frito, I worked with regional directors to help establish an online inventory system allowing surrounding distribution centers to access recycled shipping boxes and reduce waste. Translation: my job was to leverage technology and business strategies to improve the company’s performance while making a positive social impact.
After graduation, I moved to New Jersey to work on a financial services team at Morgan Stanley. Though the finance industry was not on my radar, my creative side could not turn down the opportunity to be the team’s first Marketing Director. My main objective was to build our brand awareness and foster expansion in the Greater Philadelphia area. Through community outreach and nonprofit involvement, I organized and ran several charity golf outings on behalf of our team. The events successfully raised money for our partnered charities, Living Beyond Breast Cancer, Special Operations Warrior Foundation and Quantum Leap Farm, all while gaining market exposure for our business. In 2017, our team transitioned from Morgan Stanley to Raymond James and I became the new Practice Business Coordinator. I continued my event work at Raymond James and became a founding member and Vice President of the Patriot Fund, Inc. Between Morgan Stanley and Raymond James, I spent over five years learning, refining, and implementing cause marketing campaigns for my team. As always, I found this work deeply rewarding; however, limiting my cause marketing to just the finance industry felt—well, limiting. So, at the end of 2017 I decided to part ways with the industry and broaden my reach.
After a few months of self-reflection, freelance gigs and countless hours of research, I had my eureka moment. The demand for companies to practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) and brand citizenship is greater than ever, but good-deed efforts can backfire. Undoubtedly, there is both a wrong way and a right way to practice CSR. To meet consumer demands the right way, companies need to establish thoughtful action, genuine purpose and clear communication; all things I have been practicing for years.
And just like that, it all made sense. RightCause was born.
So I started RightCause to help every business grow while serving a greater good. We provide businesses with the necessary consultation and vetted resources for a better bottom line and community. RightCause strategically partners for-profit businesses with reputable nonprofit organizations for a mutually beneficial relationship. We enable businesses to plan, execute and communicate their brand citizenship, while raising awareness and support for corresponding charity efforts.