Carol Cone

Founder and Chairman, Cone, Inc.

 

Carol Cone is nationally recognized for her work in the Cause Branding® and strategic philanthropy arenas. As the Chairman of Cone, Inc., she has embraced a steadfast commitment to building substantive and sustainable partnerships between companies and social issues for more than 25 years. Cone has pioneered vibrant new alliances for private/public partnerships to create signature programs for a host of Fortune 500 companies, including the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, ConAgra Foods’ Feeding Children Better, PNC Grow Up Great, the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women program, Reebok’s Human Rights Awards, Rockport’s Fitness Walking, and the Gillette Prostate Cancer Challenge, among others. Overall, Cone’s signature cause programs have raised more than $1.2 billion for various social causes. Today, Cone, Inc. is acknowledged as the nation’s leading Cause Branding consultancy.

 

Since her student days at Brandeis University during the turbulent and socially conscious Vietnam era, Cone’s career has been ignited with a keen passion for social justice. Intuitively grasping the benefits of authentic links between companies and social issues, Cone, Inc. helps companies and nonprofit organizations integrate values and social issues into brand equity and organizational identity to gain significant bottom-line impacts. Cause Branding, a term trademarked by the firm, creates dimensionality for the brand that cannot be easily replicated, vibrancy within the organization that builds pride and loyalty, and a bond with consumers and communities that leads to trust and long-term commitment.

 

To move knowledge forward and empower corporations and consumers alike in their association of doing well for themselves while doing good for the world, Cone commissioned the Cone research series, the nation’s only nine-year longitudinal studies on consumer and executive attitudes towards cause-related marketing. The studies serve as a benchmark and overwhelmingly confirm that Americans solidly support cause-related activities and that companies see benefits to their reputation, image and bottom line.

 

This research, along with her leadership in engineering key cause programs for national companies, has made Cone a frequently requested speaker on the topic of Cause Branding for the Conference Board, The Public Relations Society of America and The Cause Marketing Forum, among others. Cone is also considered one of the nation’s experts in the field and is often solicited by the national media, including USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, BusinessWeek and the Harvard Business Review.

 

Cone’s commitment to social issues forms the core of her agency’s values and culture. Cone was a founding member of Business for Social Responsibility, a national organization of businesses with two bottom lines – profit and social responsibility. At Cone, she personally funded a Habitat for Humanity home to honor and recognize the firm’s employees, who built the house in summer 2000.

 

 

She graduated magna cum laude from Brandeis University with a B.S. in Fine Arts, and Boston University with a Masters in Communications. In 1991, Cone completed the Owner/President Management Program at the Harvard Business School. Carol is a Board Member of Net Impact, a global organization of students and professionals using business to improve the world. She also serves on the Business Advisory Council of Simmons School of Management and is a marketing advisor to Save the Children and the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy.