Meet Cliff Sloan, Not Your 'Vanilla' Cause Marketer

We hope you're enjoying the first days of summer! It's been a little over two weeks since the NYC Summit and we're still pumped about everything we learned. You can find all the incredible presentations from our amazing speakers here.

Among our attendees were our friends at Phil & Co., a creative marketing agency that works exclusively with philanthropies and companies doing good. We were fortunate enough to sit down with Cliff Sloan, Founder and CEO of Phil & Co., after the Summit to hear more about how he 'Plays Well With Others' while managing his agency.

About Cliff: Cliff Sloan is the Founder and CEO of Phil & Co., a full-service creative marketing agency that crafts strategies, campaigns, and branding for some of the most important causes of our time. He's led campaigns for highly visible non-profits and CSR initiatives, including the United Nations Foundation, the American Diabetes Association, Brookfield Office Properties, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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Question: If you could solve/cure ONE of the world's biggest challenges, what would it be?
Answer: If I had to choose just one, I’d cure cancer because it’s a disease that claimed someone who was very close to me. I think most people are inclined to support the causes that intersect with their lives.

Question: What main causes are you currently working on?
Answer: Music education (public schools), healthcare, social justice, the arts, education (higher education), and philanthropic impact measurement. 

Question: What is the current status/trend of the causes you work on?
Answer: It’s impossible to generalize based on the breadth of topics and organizations that we’re involved with. That said, a number of clients are looking to reposition, refresh and rearticulate their brands to better reflect the adoption of technology and data that translates to innovation and measurable impact.

Question: Do you see the need for funding and support increasing or decreasing over the next five years?
Answer: It completely depends on what cause you’re talking about. In the current political climate, some will fare better than others. I do think individual giving will rise because the causes that one supports are increasingly becoming a politicized extension of self and personal expression -- a badge, of sorts. We’re living in highly emotional times and causes are one way of projecting what you stand for and sharing that voice (and content) with like-minded people.

Question: What do you work tirelessly on to further your mission?
Answer: We strive to be the agency that clients call when they’ve had enough “vanilla”; when they’re ready to step out and shake things up a bit. We’re “where cause comes for creativity,” so delivering superior creative work that is strategically informed and engages and mobilizes our audiences is what we’re always working towards. Striking the right balance of creative storytelling and delivering tangible metrics is at the heart and soul of the agency.

Question: Name a favorite community nonprofit or effort you support locally on a personal level.
Answer: NPR (WNYC).

Question: What are some of the tools you use to do business?
Answer: The most important tool we use is our ears. We listen to our clients. The smarter we are about their nuances and priorities in a 360 degree way, the more we can help them drive results and the more we can grow as an agency. We also have our ears to the ground in terms of research, technology and category insights that inform our work.

Question: Tell me something good that’s happened in the past year.
Answer: The restrictions that were eased on visiting Cuba. I went and spent time with artists and musicians there -- very, very interesting and cool.

Thanks, Cliff, for chatting with us and for being an integral member of the CMS Tribe that plays well with others!