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For every person who says cause marketing and corporate philanthropy are “feel-good exercise[s], generating little value for a company’s shareholders” like Marc Gunther at Fortune, there is another saying “Executives tempted to cut back on their corporate philanthropy in a slowing economy should think again” like Rachel Cohen at Forbes.com.

With hard economic times, the debate about the merit of supporting nonprofits in any capacity is front and center for corporations, foundations, individual donors and the nonprofits that benefit from them. These days it feels like every other story in the news is about how to save at the pumps or cut costs during a recession. It is during times like this, when nonprofits begin to question their donor strategy, that it’s useful to remember what provokes engagement in a cause in the first place.  A number of these points were highlighted at the Cause Marketing Forum annual conference which I attended in May. The bottom line: no matter the state of the economy, humans are almost uniformly consistent.  Nonprofits would do well to remember these timeless nuggets about consumer behavior.

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Hundreds of Facebook friends.  Thousands of YouTube hits. Millions of dollars from community fundraising. Lively email groups and message boards. A veritable cyber-utopia of intellectual discourse.

A thriving online community, all centered on your cause.

You know you want it.

Or do you?

Many an online community project can be railroaded into the ground with one simple, seemingly innocuous sentence. “How can I stop ‘the bad people’ from?”

“The Bad People? ” Who are the bad people? There are different types of bad people. People who will use profanity. People who mean well, but egregiously write in online short-hand. Then, there’s the scariest people: those who don’t agree with your mission.

There are a series of filters you can use, depending on your application, to stop the profane. There’s even a stupid filter to prevent the low level of discourse online short-hand can create. But there’s only way to keep that third group in line: moderate.

But be careful. Once you decide to go down the path of moderating, you need to make sure you have a plan  and the man-hours to keep it up. Many non-profits just don’t have the resources. But you don’t need to toss that online community out yet.  You just need to prepare.

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Beaconfire will be exhibiting and presenting at the AMA Nonprofit Marketing Conference, which will take place at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC, July 14-16, 2008.

Beaconfire VP & Co-Founder Michael Cervino will be presenting One to One Marketing: Using Technology to Connect with Individuals with Steve MacLaughlin, Director, Internet Solutions for Blackbaud, on Monday, July 14 from 8 am – noon.  This session will demystify emerging communication channels collectively known as social media. Participants will reach a better understanding of how to use email, websites, RSS feeds, direct mail, stewardship, and social networking sites to improve people-to-people marketing, fundraising and friend-raising. During the interactive portion of this session, participants will work with peers to develop a wireframe multi-channel marketing plan based on real-world cases.

We’ll also be in the exhibit hall at tabletop #9, so be sure to stop by to visit us.