Finance & Investment

Here's What Nonprofits Could Do with $7M — the Cost of a Super Bowl Ad

If the least these numbers do is encourage big brands to invest more in their social and environmental initiatives — or give consumers a new nonprofit to support — we’ll consider that a score.

Brand Provided | By Carol Cone ON PURPOSE | Published 1 month ago | About a 5 minute read

Image: Big Brothers Big Sisters of America

When it comes time for a commercial break, TV viewers only tend to lean in during one broadcast each year. The Super Bowl has a powerful grip on consumers’ attention, and not just for the touchdowns and penalty calls. It’s no wonder that marketers will pay $7-8 million for 30 seconds of viewer attention, when their commercials are usually an opportunity to grab another snack or sneak in a bathroom break.

As social impact consultants, we can understand the payoff of some Super Bowl ads. In recent years — this past Sunday was no exception — more brands have been bringing their cause marketing and social impact efforts to the broadcast, understanding the powerful pull that these messages have on consumers. Our favorite might have been the NFL’s spotlight on its cause partners — including Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Special Olympics and InSideOut. In the ad, NFL players and kids from the nonprofit organizations recite Rev. Williams Holmes Borders’ poem, “I Am Somebody.” This is the kind of ad spend we can certainly get behind, and hopefully it provided a welcome boost for the nonprofits and their programming.

Several other ads addressed social issues: Dove debuted a new spot highlighting that nearly half of girls drop out of sports by age 14 due to low body confidence. Another trend was messaging around health and wellness: Novartis highlighted breast cancer awareness, while health startup Hims & Hers touched on the US’ obesity crisis and accessible solutions. We applaud these efforts and think that brands with the budget for it should absolutely highlight the tangible impact of community, social and environmental initiatives.

With that said, we have a tradition at Carol Cone ON PURPOSE of asking our nonprofit partners and colleagues to quantify the impact of an “extra” $7 million. (Some Super Bowl ads went for an astounding $8 million this year, after advertisers including State Farm Insurance dropped out and Fox found itself with extra inventory to sell.) While we don’t think the Super Bowl will ever ditch the spectacle of its commercials, it’s powerful to contextualize just how much good a sum like $7 million can achieve for resource-strapped nonprofits and their beneficiaries.

If the least these numbers do is encourage big brands to invest more in their social and environmental initiatives — or give consumers a new nonprofit to support — then we’ll consider that a score.

We asked some of our favorite nonprofit organizations what $7 million could help them achieve. Here’s what they said:

Action Against Hunger could treat nearly 47,000 children experiencing life-threatening malnutrition.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America could match more than 4,600 at-risk youth with a reliable mentor or positive role model.
Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program could provide transportation to medical appointments for 28,000 patients experiencing homelessness in a city with one of the highest rates of homelessness and unsheltered homelessness in the United States.
DoSomething could fuel half a million young people nationwide to DoSomething for Others by volunteering and leading service projects in their local communities — helping them build community and create a safer, kinder and fairer world for all of us.
Footprint Project could provide emergency clean power access to approximately 70,000 people affected by disasters.
Green Bronx Machine could deliver 1,126 indoor academic gardening programs to public schools across the US — including hydroponic technology, K-12 curriculum, teacher training, professional development and all classroom materials. Such programs are capable of reaching 1.2M students, 93,000 teachers; and resulting in higher-performing schools with students growing, sharing, and eating over 1.6 million pounds of locally grown vegetables annually.
Keep America Beautiful could pick up 50 million pieces of litter, plant 25K trees to support communities recovering from natural disasters and transform 250 vacant lots into clean, green parks.
National Women's History Museum could fund more than two years of educational programs, resources and storytelling content that bring to life the countless untold stories of remarkable women throughout history — reaching 5M annual website visitors and igniting the potential of the next generation of female leaders.
Save the Children could help educate 400,000 children in rural areas across the US.
Shatterproof could expand its Treatment Atlas across the United States to guide 49 million people struggling with substance-use disorder to the right type of quality addiction treatment or expand work to reduce addiction stigma across the US — especially with healthcare professionals.
Thorn could fully fund its victim-identification efforts for an entire year. This would accelerate the development and deployment of tools that help investigators sift through overwhelming caseloads, prioritize the most urgent cases, and locate victims more efficiently. Every minute saved can mean the difference between a child remaining stuck in abuse or being rescued.

What could your organization achieve — or help your nonprofit partners achieve — with $7 million? We’d love to hear. Share your ideas with us on LinkedIn.