Hershey Cause Communications Rebrands As Hybrid Social Venture, Celebrates 36 Years Of Cause Marketing Leadership

New brand integrates agency and nonprofit in unified mission of Communications for Good®

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Hershey Cause Communications, a pioneer in cause marketing, relaunches today at www.hersheycause.com as one integrated brand. Based in Los Angeles, the mission-driven strategic marketing and communications agency and nonprofit organization creates positive social change on behalf of companies, foundations, nonprofits and the public sector.

With the rebrand, Hershey Cause Communications becomes a hybrid social venture, unifying its nonprofit organization and certified B Corporation with one mission: to use communications for good. As a certified B Corporation, Hershey Cause Communications voluntarily meets higher standards of transparency, accountability and performance. Together, the B Corporation and nonprofit form one of a growing number of hybrid social ventures committed to solving the world's problems through social entrepreneurship.

"My passion has always been to make a difference, and I believe we've shown many times how strategic communications can move the needle on important social issues," said Hershey Cause Communications founder R. Christine Hershey. "We deliver results for our clients by combining our unique blend of marketing skills with our commitment to social change. Clients benefit and advance causes by working with our agency and our nonprofit, so it just makes sense to further integrate our operations."

R. Christine Hershey founded the marketing and communications agency in 1977. Her first project was an outreach campaign to women small business owners on behalf of a group of Los Angeles area credit unions. Over the decades, the agency has worked at the forefront of nearly every major social movement, from the AIDS crisis and breast cancer awareness to climate change and LGBT equality. Hershey Cause Communications has served over 170 clients across a range of progressive causes, with a special focus on the arts, diversity and equality, early childhood development, education, the environment, health care and social justice. Clients have ranged from Kaiser Permanente and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to the American Lung Association and First 5 LA. The agency's work with the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and Liberty Hill helped those foundations quadruple and triple their assets, respectively.

"Hershey Cause Communications led our diverse board to consensus on capital campaign strategy and created materials that captured our mission," said Johnathan Williams, Founder of The Accelerated School. "Their outreach on our behalf generated public awareness that resulted in recognition as Time Magazine's Elementary School of the Year."

In 1998, at the urging of foundation leaders who saw a need to build communication skills in the nonprofit sector, Hershey established Cause Communications, a nonprofit organization that successfully educated and trained more than 20,000 nonprofit leaders in all 50 states and over 25 countries on the tactics of high-impact communications to advance positive social change. The organization's programs share and elevate best practices through publications, tools, trainings and research. Publications include the "2-Minute Answer Guide for Nonprofit Leaders" (2012), "Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes" (2006), and "The Communications Toolkit" (2005).

"The Communications Toolkit is, in a word, excellent," said Jeff Martin, former Director of Media Relations, Council on Foundations. "If nonprofits adhered to these basic communications principles, policymakers, the media and even the general public would have a better understanding of who we are, what we do and how we do it."

As an author and industry expert, R. Christine Hershey's work has appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The New York Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She was a 2011 honoree of the Los Angeles Business Journal's "Women Making a Difference" awards and was named 2010 Women in Business "Champion of the Year" by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The agency has been recognized for creative excellence by professional organizations including Graphic Design Annual, Graphic Arts and American Graphic Design. In just the past year, the team won MarCom, PRSA-LA PRism, PR News' Nonprofit PR and HPRMA Golden Advocate Awards for work ranging from website design, branding, radio/PSAs, multicultural marketing, creative tactics, publications and community relations.

"It's exciting to see that social entrepreneurship, and the idea that business can be both profitable and operate for good, is finally an accepted notion with real momentum," said Hershey. "A lot has changed over the last 36 years, but it is obvious that to solve the world's most challenging problems, we need new models that work across all silos, sectors and audiences. We were founded on this notion so many years ago and it continues to guide us."

About Hershey Cause Communications
Hershey Cause Communications is a mission-driven strategic marketing and communications agency that creates positive social change on behalf of companies, foundations, nonprofits and the public sector. Based in Los Angeles, the agency also provides communication tools and training to over 20,000 nonprofit organizations in over 25 countries. For more information, visit http://www.hersheycause.com.  

MEDIA CONTACT:
Marie Condron, 213-925-9605
[email protected]

SOURCE Hershey Cause Communications