iMPACTiSSiMO! Podcast Episode 55: Adam Marquez with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
15% increase in earning potential and 20% increase in college attendance – that’s what Big Brothers Big Sisters of America can do for kids through their youth mentorship programs – and are celebrating 120 years of service!
Their recent campaign, partnering with Macy’s, has raised $13 million to propel their mission of providing free life-changing mentoring services to the youth who need it most in this country.
And was awarded the Engage for Good Halo Award for best Cause Marketing Initiative of the year.
Of course, every nonprofit wishes for great corporate partners like this. How do you develop those kinds of relationships? How do you make the most of them? Adam Marquez, Senior Director, Cause Marketing at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, shares his expert insights.
Allies he needs right now:
Corporate partners to reach more children
Youth mentors are always needed
Partners in policy change to expand mentoring resources
Influencers and media partners to share their story
Visit BeBigNow.org to learn how you can get involved.
Podcast Transcript
JACOB: [00:00:00] Each year, the Halo Awards recognizes the top nonprofit and corporate initiatives, and this year, the awards gala was held in Palm Springs. And the winner of the Best Cause Marketing Initiative was Macy’s and Big Brothers Big Sisters holiday campaign titled ‘Give Love, Give Back.’ And today on the show, we have Adam Marquez with Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America. And I’m interested to find out how they crafted this partnership in the first place and what made the campaign so successful, and what lessons can other nonprofits and CSR professionals learn from this.
So Adam, Welcome.
ADAM: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Yeah No, we are thrilled with our partnership with Macy’s. We just kind of finished our third year with them. We’re in the process of gearing up for our fourth year [00:01:00] partnership, and the Give Love Give Back campaign was part of their kind of company-wide holiday marketing initiative that they did this past year, and it was built on the tagline ‘Give Love’ to really expand that transformative message, and it falls within their Mission Every One platform. And so it’s really kind of under this larger partnership between Macy’s and Big Brothers Big Sisters, where there’s this vision to create lasting positive change in the lives of youth by empowering them through mentorship.
And so with that strong alignment with Macy’s, purpose-driven platform of Mission Every One, and Big Brothers, Big Sisters, we were really able to keep authenticity at the center of everything. And in the past three years, we raised $13 million to propel our mission, which is to provide free life-changing mentoring services to the youth who need us most in this country.
And so some of the successes of the campaign really were to help kind of drive awareness of the [00:02:00] power of mentorship to customer and colleague, and community engagement. And the primary audiences that we reached during the holiday season were through point-of-sale campaigns where there was roundups in every Macy’s store in the US. There were donations on Macys.com. There were these little designed capsule collections that were actually kind of designed, you know, by the youth in our program and sold online and in stores to help raise funds, mugs, holiday mugs and, and holiday bears. And then the partnership is really brought to life through things like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where, you know, it is actually the highest watched non-sporting event each year, which is pretty cool. So for us to be a part of that is really, really special.
And then we also do things like holiday window displays where our littles create ornaments that are then displayed in the iconic Macy’s Holiday Windows. So, lots of great stuff I can talk about, [00:03:00] so many different cool aspects of the campaign. Like I said, you know, we’ve done three years of this now, so, so many different ways that we’ve kind of integrated both of our aspects of it and really have seen some great success, not only from a fundraising perspective, but really from that kind of local community impact and that youth empowerment where we’re creating these really great experiences for them.
JACOB: Oh, fantastic. So, I mean, in your role as Development Director, is that right?
ADAM: I’m Senior Director of Cause Marketing, so I oversee all of the cause marketing partnerships that Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America engages in.
JACOB: So I’m sure there’s a lot of organizations that are, would love to have that kind of corporate partner. How do you go about nurturing, or how did that come about? What were the steps that it took to sort of develop that and nurture that to the point that they’re ready to kind of engage on that level?
ADAM: Yeah. So a few years ago, as Macy’s developed this Mission Every One kind of, that was living within their kind of purpose-driven, you know, [00:04:00] CSR initiatives. They reached out and they kind of put out an RFP to see, you know, what would be the right organization to be their cause partner. So we responded to that and through the, you know, several iterations of, you know, interviews and meeting up with them and really understanding that our two missions aligned very well. We were chosen as their holiday cause partner of choice. They do have many other really wonderful nonprofit organizations that they work with throughout the year, and that all kind of falls under their Mission Every One. So the ability for us to kind of be chosen as that marquee partner, you know, like I mentioned, each year we’re kind of building upon the successes of the previous year and also learning, you know, kind of through these experiences, what may not work as well and, and what we can kind of readjust and, and do even better the following year. So, you know, it is a continuous ongoing partnership that we’re continuing to build, and the fact [00:05:00] that not only did we have mission-aligned lead, but we also are a national organization.
You know, we have hundreds of agencies throughout the country. We’re in all 50 states, 5,000 communities, and so that kind of mirrors a bit of what Macy’s footprint is as well and they’re really focused on their employee engagement as well. So to be able to create these moments where the littles from our agencies across the country can go in and connect, meet, learn, and experience, you know, kind of the joy of being in a Macy’s store. We’ve done these fun things where they’re like little holiday breakfasts. So the littles get to come in, and the store associates are there, they have some crafts, they sometimes have a special guest, you know, come in, and then they get some gift cards from Macy’s, and they get to go do some holiday shopping.
So there’s those types of authentic little engagements that really kind of resonated with Macy’s as they were looking for, you know, who would be a good holiday partner for them. So that’s kind of how it came [00:06:00] about.
JACOB: Oh, lovely. And I’m sure most people have heard of Big Brothers, Big Sisters, but sometimes they might have a general sense, but like, if you were just to define what is the good you’re trying to create in the world, how is Big Brothers and Big Sisters like set up to make the world a better place?
ADAM: That’s a great question. So, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, we are the nation’s largest and most experienced youth mentorship organization, and we’ve been igniting the power and promise of youth for 120 years. We’re actually celebrating our 120th anniversary right now. And, you know, we know that the mentorship program with Big Brothers Big Sisters has a profound impact on young people, on society, and on the economy. We have the data to prove that. We have years and years, you know, kind of not only anecdotal, but analytical and statistical data to show kind of the impact that this mentorship program has. When it comes to young people, we know in the long term that [00:07:00] adults who have had a positive mentor experience they have greater health benefits and reduced isolation, and they live longer lives. We know that people who experience mentorship are two times more likely to be involved in and hold leadership positions in clubs in sports, and that they’re 41% less likely to engage in substance abuse. We also know that mentorship is good for the economy. We actually just recently looked back at some of our economic impact numbers on our littles over time, and we found that our littles who enter the workforce are earning more than their non-mentored peers and experiencing 15% higher income between the ages of 20 and 25. And after being mentored as a team, BBBS mentoring is proven to increase their lifetime earnings by 15%. And that they’re 20% more likely to enroll in college after high school graduation.
And then for the broader society as far as kind of the good that we’re doing, we closed [00:08:00] two-thirds of the socioeconomic gap for littles compared with non-mentored young people. We know that the income as their adults actually more closely the aligned with the income of the bigs than in their family. And we know that we’ve just kind of been proven to increase that social capital to give youth from low-income backgrounds access to opportunity. So those connections are fostering upward mobility, and they’re ensuring that the littles are really just better positioned to succeed in life.
JACOB: Wow. Well, those are some great stats. And so maybe even just, how does, what does mentorship actually look like on a tangible level? Explain just kind of the mechanics of how that works.
ADAM: Sure, there’s two types of mentorship structures that the organization has. One is site-based and one is community-based. So, the site-based is often when a mentor will meet up with a mentee at a place like a school. And so maybe they’ll have lunch together or they’ll do some [00:09:00] sort of a project at the school. It’s a little more structured, and it all depends on the agency itself. So the agencies across the country they’re all their own 501C3s, kind of independent, you know, kind of organizations under the umbrella of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America. So some agencies will have two types, where it’s, you know, kind of site-based and community. Some will just have one.
And the community-based is where, you know, kind of, you think of that traditional mentor maybe picking up a mentee and taking ’em to a ball game or you know, out for a, you know, some pizza or something like that. But it really can show up in all of those ways. We just say that, you know, you don’t have to be the best and know everything when it comes to mentorship. You don’t have to be a teacher or a professor. You don’t have to make a lot of money. You really just need to be present and persistent. So it doesn’t take, you know, very long to be a mentor, just a few hours a month.
Again, every agency’s a little bit different, but it’s usually, you know, two to four hours a month. And depending on how it’s [00:10:00] structured, you know, you can meet ’em in the community, you can meet ’em at the school. And then we usually ask for a two-year commitment just so that they have that level of, you know, kind of continuity and support as they’re kind of navigating life.
But what’s interesting is our fastest-growing cohort of littles right now is actually in the 18 to 25 age group. So these youth are coming out of high school, and maybe they’re, you know, still kind of figuring out what they want to do in the world, or they have questions and they still kind of feel like they need that level of guidance and support. We especially saw that coming out of the pandemic, it was even more stark. And so we have a program called Big Futures, which is really there to support, you know, kind of middle and high school age students as they kind of leave high school and into the workforce. So we offer all sorts of types of career exploration opportunities and different cool partnerships with some of the partners that I work with [00:11:00] to expose them to, you know, different things that they can get involved with and become, you know, professionals or productive parts of society, depending on what their interests.
JACOB: Maybe this sounds like a curveball, but you know, the Give Love Give Back campaign was obviously a home run. Tell me about a time, though that you struck out. What are the lessons that other people in your situation might learn from what you tried and didn’t, you know, win a Halo award for didn’t raise $13 million for.
ADAM: Yeah, well, I mean, I kind of live by the mantra that, like, even the bad stuff, you learn the most from. So, you know, when you get a no, I mean, you know, fundraising, oftentimes we get nos, or when you strike out, all you really are doing is kind of learning from that, no, from that mistake, and, you know, recalibrating and kind of approaching it better the next time.
So a lot of times with our partnerships, what’s really important is that that level of authenticity [00:12:00] and that synergy and connection between the nonprofit and the corporate partner or whatever the other entity is, there needs to be that commonality that you’re both kind of working toward the same good. And you may have, you know, kind of your own kind of goals, you know, independently, but it’s those shared goals that are really gonna help things to gel and work. And so, you know, if you start from that baseline, then you know that, you know you’re gonna have more successes.
So, for example, with Macy’s, the partnership is designed, you know, to help Macy’s build their brand and love and relationships with customers through the power of storytelling. And so, you know, we worked with them to supply some moving stories of our bigs and little, and then they thoughtfully, you know, used those stories across their mediums. So whether it was bigs and littles who were featured on in-store signage that [00:13:00] they created.
Or you know, these beautiful relationships of matches that were spotlighted on an NBC special the night before the Thanksgiving Day parade. These stories really kind of help to give Macy’s a new way to relate and engage with the customers and ultimately help them feel seen in the stores and online. And, you know, it drives that loyalty, and it just, you know, kind of shines that authenticity of what that partnership really is all about.
JACOB: So, shifting gears a little bit, you know, as a storyteller, I’m always interested in origin stories or, you know, inciting incidences of life was going just fine. And then you get bit by a radioactive spider, and now you become Spider-Man.
Like, so for Adam, what was that moment in your career or your life where you’re like, Hey, I’m actually going to dedicate my life to doing good.
ADAM: Yeah, another really good question. So I’ve been doing nonprofit for about 20 years [00:14:00] now, and I kind of fell into it. You know, I went to school, went to grad school, and came out of school and realized that I still have 30, 40 years of work to do, and, you know, what am I gonna be doing that motivates me and drives me and makes me feel that sense of satisfaction?
And so, the first job I got out of grad school was for a small LGBTQ marketing firm, PR and marketing firm. And it was fun. It was kind of, you know, aligned with, you know, my schooling, and one of the clients was the Human Rights Campaign, which does LGBTQ, you know, equality fights for that. And so as I started to work with them as a client and saw like the work that they’re doing is really amazing and this is really impactful. And you know, I started waking up thinking, this is where I wanna devote my energy to, this is the type of work that I want to do, that I care about. And so when the opportunity presented itself, I actually [00:15:00] jumped over to the Human Rights Campaign, and I was there for about 12 years and primarily worked on corporate partnerships.
And toward the end of that, I started doing cause marketing partnerships, which, you know, was really starting to kind of grow popularity over the past, you know, five to 10 years. And I thought, wow, this is blending, you know, what I really enjoyed from the marketing aspect of it that PR marketing with the cause purpose-driven nonprofit role, and wouldn’t that be great if I could kind of really kind of wrap that into my career?
So Big Brothers Big Sisters actually reached out a few years ago and said, Hey, we have this position that is cause marketing and I was like, this is, this sounds perfect, this is great. So I jumped on it and it is, it’s the most rewarding thing ’cause I really get to do some creative stuff every day in really kind of helping to devise these campaigns. But then you’re also knowing that you’re doing it for good. So you’re not just getting people to, you know, drink more soda or buy a pair of jeans. [00:16:00] It’s really wrapped around these great messages and purpose and impact. So it motivates me to get up in the morning, and I’m no longer thinking, oh, I gotta work for another, you know, 20 years. I’m thinking, How much longer do I get to work and do this because it’s so impactful?
JACOB: I love that. I mean, as a fellow storyteller, I’m curious what’s the one piece of advice you’d have for other people in your shoes that are in cause marketing. Or what’s the biggest lesson from storytelling that you would want to share? In a nutshell?
ADAM: I think it goes back to that authenticity. So, you know, people are pretty savvy, especially in this day and age, where we’re constantly looking at different types of stories and media and AI and can kind of spot know like, you know, what isn’t fully, you know, resonating. So if you start from that base of authenticity and can kind of build the story from that, it’s gonna be that much more compelling. [00:17:00] And when you’re already working for an organization that does such good.
We just have so much wonderful information and data, and stories. That, you know, we have a conference every year that I’m able to have attended all of the agencies go. And we highlight, you know, kind of different matches and the stories and it, there’s not a dry eye in the room when you’re hearing some of these stories because it’s really just so impactful to see what mentorship can do. And you see these folks who are coming back, you know, they were littles in the program 20, 30 years ago, and you know, they’re still in touch with their big, or you know, they’re now bigs themselves because they got so much impact from being, you know, a mentee when they were growing up that they wanted to turn around and give it back.
So, when you’re able to kind of show those stories, you know, it’s not hard to kind of be able to have that level of authenticity. But you’ve gotta [00:18:00] stay with that authentic, you know, kind of thread. ‘Cause that’s what’s really gonna move people and show the impact.
JACOB: Brilliant. Yeah. I love it.
So what’s the biggest hurdle that Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America is facing right now?
ADAM: Oh, really good question again. Well, we know right now that young people are facing this widening equity gap. They’re not starting off with the same resources or the networks or opportunities, but they should. And you know, we really saw that in Stark disparity as the pandemic kind of wore on. So we still know that many young people are facing the challenges of adolescence, of trauma, and life decisions without a mentor. One in three kids in America right now is growing up without a mentor and without someone who can really provide support and positive reinforcement, and that’s 10 million kids.
[00:19:00] So we have a big vision right now, and that is to change the odds for those 10 million kids who need mentors. And we know that by doing that, that’s gonna help change society for the better.
JACOB: What are the allies you need right now? Particularly to help those 10 million kids and change the odds for them.
ADAM: We can always use allies; the more, the better. You know, an organization that’s built around mentorship and, you know, leaning on other people and community. We know that there’s allies in all sectors of society right now that you can lean on and that will need in order to help achieve that big vision. Including those in the policy world. You know, we wanna kinda lean on them to help us influence access to more kids by affecting policy change, that expands mentoring resources, and funding diverse partnerships. So, you know, knowing that we can use the influence of our wonderful different types of partnerships to help kids access things that break barriers and expand [00:20:00] our reach. So whether that’s media partners, or corporate partners or influencers, researchers, policy, all of those partnerships can kind of help us kind of move the ball forward.
And then, of course, public engagement. You know, those allies who are in the public sphere to help influence access to more kids by helping to engage donors, helping to engage our partners, and helping to engage the broader public to really invest in mentorship so that we can reach more kids.
JACOB: Well, Adam, I applaud the good that you’re doing and I think it’s you know, on one hand it could seem like, oh, they’re all set, right? They’ve got Macy’s, they just won awards, but you know, like every organization, it’s always an uphill battle and the job is never done.
Any rallying cry for the listeners out there in terms of that you wanna leave?
ADAM: Yeah, I mean, I would just say keep the faith. You know, focus on the positive there’s so much [00:21:00] good in the world, and there’s so much good to be done. It’s just so impactful. There’s so much to do and in times where you feel down or you know, like you, what you’re doing doesn’t make a difference, or what does it matter anyway? You know, focus on the things that you can do or that you can make an impact on. ‘Cause there’s a lot of that out there. So I appreciate the ability to get to wake up and do that every day.
JACOB: And wish you all the best in the world, and let’s connect you with those allies that you need to help. Help those 10 million kids thrive.
ADAM: Thank you.
Appreciate it so much for having me.
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