Corktown Seed Co. announced Tuesday the first recipient of Cause School, its pilot social enterprise designed to help start-ups develop a brand and execute a campaign. Teen Legal Helpline, a free service that connects teens with lawyers, was the winning non-profit organization.
The hotline will receive two-hour “classroom” sessions with the twelve members of Cause School’s multi-disciplinary faculty. The faculty includes representatives from the marketing, financial and community development sectors, among others.
Following the classroom sessions, Corktown Seed staffers will work pro bono with Teen Legal Helpline to develop a brand identity, promote its mandate and drive fundraising.
Corktown Seed (formally Smith Roberts) re-branded in September with the intent of doing socially responsible work and becoming a values-focused agency. At the same time, it launched Cause School.
“Like a lot of agencies, we were a bit haphazard as to how we would do pro bono work,” said Julia Howell, partner at Corktown Seed and founder of Cause School. “We wanted to create intelligent work, and it didn’t seem appropriate to pick whatever cause our CEO, for example, was into, which is how most agencies do it.”
Howell said three organizations made the shortlist and Teen Legal Helpline was selected because it was a good fit for Corktown Seed, there were no other organizations in that space and it could benefit greatly from the faculty’s support.
“It’s a well-conceived initiative that demonstrated a need for help, and showed the capacity to build upon what we give them,” she said.
She added that Corktown Seed may put together a campaign for the organization in the future, but wasn’t sure when or how it will develop. It’s up to the students of Cause School to determine what information they require from the faculty, she said.
Corktown Seed plans to select a Cause School recipient annually, and ultimately intends to develope a publicly accessible repository of insights and inspiration for start-up causes through its website CauseSchool.com. Many of the classroom sessions will be recorded, and the agency plans to share case studies demonstrating campaign best practices.
