CECP (Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose)

Transform CECP from "Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy" to "Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose." 

Objective: Re-align the organization’s name and messaging with its mission.

Result: A refreshed name, tagline and messaging, capturing all that CECP stands for.

Background: CECP is a CEO-led coalition—founded in 1999 by actor and philanthropist Paul Newman, and other business leaders—that believes that a company’s social strategy (how it engages with key stakeholders including employees, communities, investors, and customers) determines company success. In recent years, the organization has gone through branding changes—including creating a new logo and referring to the organization with the initials CECP, rather than its full name. But they felt the original name, Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, no longer fully represented the mission of the organization. 

Ideas To Go volunteered to help develop a name and communications strategy that aligned with the mission of CECP. The goals of the project were to:

• Generate possibilities for a name that matched the re-branding.
• Create communications that sent the message that the organization is about so much more than philanthropy.
• Encourage more companies, who are not currently involved, to become active participants.
• Develop ideas for getting the companies that are involved to do even more.
• Position CECP as a thought leader in the corporate philanthropy space.
• Differentiate CECP from competitors.

To achieve these goals, Ideas To Go Facilitators designed a customized project with CECP team members. Eight Creative Consumers^® associates were screened and selected on their belief that it's important for companies to invest in society, and engage with their communities. With that priority in mind, the Creative Consumers^® associates completed a homework assignment, along with a "creative expression," to serve as inspiration for the ideation session.

During the session, the Creative Consumers^® associates and seven CECP team members worked together to generate ideas. 

The session resulted in:

• 4 Target Areas

• 702 Ideas

• 113 High Interest Ideas

• 26 Positioning Essence Outlines

Following the session, CECP team members continued to refine their positioning and messaging, informed by the work done with Ideas To Go. They landed on a new tagline—“Creating a better world through business.” To celebrate CECP’s 20^th Anniversary, they announced a redefined acronym as Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose—a name that emerged directly from the Ideas To Go session.